1566 - 1948-49 Leaf Baseball, with David, Cardboredom.com

Foreign. Welcome Dr. James Beckett. Sports Card Insights episode with David from Cardboardom had written me about his treatise on 49 Leaf baseball. A lot of great research there. Really appreciated that we went longer and I just thought this is the kind of stuff I need to be doing in my podcast. But I don't need to break it up into two parts when the people are interested in are really interested. We've furthered the knowledge. Thanks David's research and then I'm trying to fill in some blanks based on my experience. Hope you'll appreciate all the hard work that David did. So here it is. Leaf baseball from the late 40s. I love those cards and I was just going after them, but I didn't do all the research you've done. So I just found that fascinating and going deeper with what has been an unfolding mystery all these years. The detective in all of us is interested in solving mysteries, which it certainly was a mystery when I first got into the industry and especially when I started cataloging and pricing. It was an enigma, but just a fabulous set. My advantage over you and many others is that I'm older. I was there earlier and the guys who were there before me had an advantage because everything's just gone up in price. But knowledge has increased over the years and the leaf set was caught in a time warp based on misperceptions. I don't think I made a mistake, but I had partial information. And thanks to you and Brian Capel, it's amazing what has been uncovered. Again, thank you for doing that. I think we're not completely on the same page, but hopefully we will be by the end of our session here. So let me go first. First misimpression. You have a 24 page document. I read it with great interest. Anybody that's interested in the leaf cards, to me it's a must read. But I may be suggesting that you have an addendum, but the basic stuff that you've done is great. But the first misimpression is that people don't care, that the price guides don't care, the grading companies don't care. I'm not saying you're attacking me, but I would be in that camp of people perceiving that I didn't care, that nothing could be further from the truth. The problem with the late 40s 49 Leaf, what was originally called 48 Leaf by the way? It was originally called 48 Leaf by none other than Jefferson Burdick in the American Card Catalog. He predates me, but then I picked up with that mainly because of the copyrights on the back of the card. But the not caring is a misunderstanding of why some of these entities in the hobby are reluctant to change. Obviously you've got longstanding traditions and accepted hierarchy of years to where the rookie cards, it would be turning things upside down to change, change the date at this time, that's problematic. But the other is the variations you've painstakingly identified, even as to their frequency in this later printing, which again is terrific. Those variations, people pitched me on that back in the day even, and they'd say, you need to do a variation for this. But they were also at the same time asking me to do variations for some of the background color variations. And those are rampant as well. And those are quality control issues. What you've clearly pointed out is 28 cards have discernible before and after differences at the graphic art stage. They're not printing defects. It's a changing of the artistic plates that print the cards. So there's a early printing and a later printing and nobody messed up. But things were changed. There was a discontinuity. My theory is the plates got damaged, There was some reason, they made a change and when they had to get new plates, they went back to the original art. And some artists just said, you know, we could improve these a little bit. These are a little drab and we could put a little more border treatment on there while we're at it. Okay, but no way, based on my experience, did Leaf think, oh, we're going to make these better. They're not artistically very good. They're still terrible, David. They're ugly cards in their beauty because their simplicity is beautiful. So the caring is about the fact that the variations that you've pointed out very clearly are seen in a side by side comparison. They're not easily seen if you list it in a price guide that is not completely pictorial. That was my dilemma, to put in some of them as opposed to all of them. I acknowledge they're 28, where you can tell the difference, but there's never been a value difference. And frankly, David, your work does point out there should be. If it's a discernible difference and it's a much harder card, it ought to be worth more now. But supply and demand, we'll see if there's demand for it. The other misperception is that somehow I'm dogmatic about the 1948 date for whatever reason. I don't know, I looked on the back of the cards. A bunch of them say 1948. I'm also somebody you can talk to that has applied for and received many copyrights. So I'm familiar with the copyright process. You can't just send in a copyright and say it was last year's thing unless you have a reason. If you say it's a 48 copyright, my understanding is you have to have something. Maybe not the whole card, but you have to have something about that card. Maybe it's a mockup, maybe it's a graphical representation, but you're working on that card material in 1948 and saying, I'm applying for this copyright. I'm doing it in 1948. Now the set doesn't come out. I fully agree. It's not commercially available until March or April of 49. So in that sense, yes, it came out in 49, but was there anything out there in 48? My sense is there was something out there. There was some intellectual property out there such that they could justify a 1948 copyright. Because if you apply for copyright in 1948, you have to have some stuff there, but you have to follow it up with the actual item, the production item. And so they would have sent that in 49. So I'm not saying even one card was available in 1948. I'm saying there was artwork or something that justified that. Then you go into the spring of 49, when the card set came out, the rest of the 49 art was produced, and it's a very rudimentary set. Everything was going fine, except for, as Brian points out, the lawsuit, that was a problem. And what you pointed out is that something happened, and I think it was damage to the plates. I've also done print production because I've done a lot of printing products, and I've done press checks. And if a plate gets damaged, you don't just fix the plate. If it's not like a scratch. And if you're taking these plates on and off, they've got to be hung properly and cleaned. If something is messed up, then they got to go back to the mechanical art, the pay stuff, which I did. I did that stuff. Okay? They would change that and say, while we're at it, we'll just do this other stuff. So I really believe that's what happened. Then I'm going to come back to why I think there's only one plate change. And that's part of our statistical argument that. I'm also a statistician. I love what you've done. But if the plate change was involuntary, instead of Voluntary. It takes wind out of the argument that they're tinkering with it and they're improving it, which I think they're one of the worst quality control companies in the history of the hobby, David. So I don't think they're looking to win awards for their graphics. So that's where we leave off. But why did you come at it this way? Because you've been a bit professorial and educational in getting the ball closer to the goal line, for sure, on this enigmatic set. When I collect a set, I want to know everything about it. That really makes collecting more enjoyable for me. 1949 leaf is such a mystery. And just the mystery of it itself was attractive. The fact that it took two decades for the first complete checklist to really come together, and even then another decade for that to really go out among all collectors, rather than just the handful that had a few of those early hobby publications. That was me. I was at the beginning of that and the end of that. Like I said, I maybe perpetuated a wrong date unknowingly. And the date is perfectly fine, considering the information available at the time. Regarding the dates, I think what's helpful is to look at it as the model year of a car. Buy a 2026 car. Some of those were rolling off the assembly lines in November of last year when they were first starting to hit car lots. But they'll sell you a 2026 here in July of this year. So I think there's a nomenclature. A hobby is congealed around in the modern times that we can get lost in the early years. So, yeah, there's definitely possibilities Something happened in 1948. I read Brian Cappell's book. I knew there were variations. As far as the ink levels on different cards, I didn't really think those were a variation. Like you said, Leaf is terrible quality control. Something I ignored when I read Brian Capell's book. That really struck me as, oh, they're an actual variation. So that's when I started to dig into it. My next question immediately was, how rare are they? At that point, the only answers I'd seen to that question were people that taken a quick look at the PSA populations and said, oh, there's this many of the Kent Peterson card with a red hat and this other number with a black hat. But there's various incentives out there that distort those populations. People are submitting a Red Hat card, which carries a higher price, and they're not submitting the Black Hat card that costs Just as much as a grading service alone does. So I figured there's some sort of other number, and I set out just trying to think how would I figure out that number from there, I see a large number of images available online, going back almost 20 years in terms of old auction records. Just anywhere I can find one of these pictures. I just started trying to track down all the serial numbers and see what I could do with those, just visually inspecting as many as I could. Do you want me to explain further why I think there was only one plate change? Because you've assembled all this data and there was a discontinuity. At least one. I'm saying just one. But at some point they change the plates and then all the cards after that until and unless there was another plate change, would be like that. And you're really just looking at grading cards. And I'm not disputing that. But really, we have a sample of a sample of a sample, and you can make some assumptions. The one assumption that we have a random sample, I think is a little bit questionable in the sense there's so many factors here, as you pointed out, you're aware of that. But if in fact, the plate problem occurred when they're 5/6 of the way, 70, 80% through with what was the eventual production run, then if it's 16% of the cards, we're going to see some cards more than 16%, some are going to have less. But if it's around 15 or 16 or 17%, then you expect some variability based on the cards. So when I noticed that the tight cluster of percentages, the superstars, all have that characteristic of being graded a lot more. And you found really good consistency among the heavily graded cards in terms of these later versions were in the teens, there were 13, 14, 15, 16, 17%. Frankly, David, that's what people are going to fixate on, because it's always been a superstar hobby to get both Jackie Robinson. Actually, there's more than two and both babies, Stan Musial. But other than the two, it's background colors. So if the result of this is for people to take a closer look, I'm calling it 4849 Leap. And I'll try to justify that just for historical compromise reasons. But if people take a closer look at it based on your great work, that's a big win. People say, I want to get the tougher Jackie. I want to get the tougher Babe. I want to get the tougher Joe DiMaggio. That's a huge positive to me and you and Brian would have been the major impetus in that. I'm not denying that they're legitimate variations, but I think it's 15% or 16% and that's evidence. Your best data are the cards that are the most graded. Most of your other ones that are causing you to think about it in a different way that frankly complicates things are common players. But there's Marty Marion. He's not a bad player. He was popular at that time, but in the modern hobby world he's not a major card that you're going to grade. So the main graded cards are like that. But I think that simplifies things. If there's one printing, then you don't have to think about any intermediate steps, which I don't think there were. Frankly. Your analysis shows almost like a bell shaped curve, except that you put it vertically in terms of your confidence intervals and that was great work. But you can't take the five ones on this end and compare it to the one on this end and say they could not have come from the same population, especially when they're all over the sheet. So I don't think that happened and I don't think that negates your work. It just suggests this is a set that has some additional complexity, but not quite as much complexity as what you're suggesting is possible. It's plausible, but I'm not saying Leaf was lazy, but they did not have attention to detail. So I don't think they would have experimented with five common players. That's not consistent with their corporate ethos and it's not necessary for your contribution. I'm not necessarily disagreeing. What you say makes sense. This came out of checking my own work. So first item was which one is rarer, A or B? And there is a distinct answer to that question. What struck me is when I went to go check my work and I saw the confidence intervals not overlapping for several cards, that made me think that's not something you usually see. So what could be driving that? Like you pointed out, the sample size or the lesser known players is. Nor dear that because not many Marty Marion cards are being slabbed compared to Jackie Robinson and Babe Ricks. So what is something that would explain those numbers being different? My initial thought was maybe there were as many as three plate changes. And even the advanced model says no, that clearly did not happen either one or two, that's it. From there, it's not super conclusive that it was definitely two either in the numbers. I leaned that way in the model. So that's where I go with my story. I saw your work. Your work wasn't defective. In a pure statistical analysis that doesn't take into account that not a defective sample. But there's some things that need to be explained on the sample. For example, I think the early cards are less attractive than the late cards. They've got less definition. There could be differences, especially on some of the cards where the later cards less handled, better looking would get a higher grade. And so they might be more likely to have been submitted compared to every jacket is going to get submitted. Okay. No matter how terrible it is. So when you incorporate that in the work that you've done, we want to find the simplest explanation. I'm not dishonoring that intention. I'm just saying given the complexity of the data, even the confidence intervals that you have a 95% confidence interval, you shouldn't be surprised if you had 28 data points and the highest one and lowest one didn't necessarily overlap. That can happen and frequently does happen. It's not guaranteed to happen. But to hang your hat on Ralph Weigel and Whitey Platt, you can easily see that they might have different grading. I love the completeness of what you did, but it's giving Leaf more credit than they deserve. I think in terms of their desire to do it. Okay. I'm calling it 4849 Leaf. And that is in order to straddle it is a compromise that probably makes half the people angry one way and the other half the people angry the other way. So pleasing no one. But you got a problem with Warren Spawn's rookie card. If it's a 49 leaf, you don't have a problem with Larry Dobie. You got a problem with Stan Musial. And it may even be if PSA changed might trigger their guarantee that if they changed a 48 leaf mule to a 49 leaf muesual and somebody submitted it under the guarantee that this is not worth what I paid for it. You didn't misgrade it, but you misclassified it. And I'm financially injured that I can no longer sell the card at the price it would be if it was classified as a 48. So I think to say that PSA doesn't care and I can't speak for them even though they're the parent now of my former company, I absolutely do not think that they don't care. It's just more complicated. All the work our company did for the nomenclature, we agonized over those things to Change it. There's a ripple effect. So I want to keep it 48, 49. I want to encourage my price guide buddies at Beckett, even the card ladder guys, when I see them psa, that your work is worthy in the sense that regardless of what you call them, they're legitimate variations. Some more than others, because some are more immediately recognizable. But I just thought we ought to have a conversation. When is David going to get to talk to a guy that was the cataloger, the price guy and determining rookie cards and a professor of statistics and had submitted a lot of copyrights and did all these press checks, going down at the printers and doing the mechanical art. And then further, I was a master set collector of what I'm calling 4849 Leaf. And that was a huge challenge. As you said, when I got in the hobby, they were barely knowing what the checklist was because it was so skip numbered. And it was like, ooh, wait a minute, but maybe there's some other cards out there. Then we finally figured out with a 49 card sheet, there's 49 of the tough ones. I used to buy collections all the time, and a couple collections had a few in there and I went for it and I traded with guys. You couldn't sell them because there weren't any cops. You could only trade them. And mainly for the short prints, you could only trade, like if you wanted a new Houser and you had an extra Dobie, which who has extras. But you could trade Dobie for Neuhauser maybe or something like that. But in those days, they wouldn't trade a Jackie for Bob Feller or Satchel Page. The Page or the Feller or even Enos Slaughter probably would be equal or greater to Jackie. In those days, demand was not as important as supply. And as the price guide books and magazines got out there, people said, hey, these are really cool. And I don't think you're the only one that's quietly accumulating the tougher variations in hopes that eventually they will be more fully recognized. And that's my hope, too. My plan is to put these in the hands of somebody else who specifically wants those so I can land a few more to short prints over time. That's about the extent that I'm going to wind up holding these again. It's a supply and demand hobby. And supply in the old days was more important. Now it's demand. The demand for the non superstar late versions is never going to be super high. If they're five or six times as tough, they're not going to be five or six times as expensive. The Jackie Robinson late version is not going to be five or six, but it's going to be more. But Even though it's six times tougher, the short prints are probably 20 times tougher, at least of the first 49. Have you done any studies on that? I've not put anything definitive together on that. Not figured out how to do that. You've got to do it superstar by superstar. You got to say, let's look at the fellers in the Pop Report and the pages and Dobie and Neuhauser and slaughter some of these hall of Famers and then try to pair it up with the first series guys. It's at least 10x. One of the limitations I'm finding going down that route is that this is an older set. So the group of collectors that have collected and built the set over the years tend to skew to the older side. They were collecting in the 70s 80s, prices were much, much lower than they are today. That group as a whole tends to stay away from graded cards. So there's a lot of raw, ungraded, 1948, 49 leaf sitting in these collections that are completely invisible to what I can see today. I've got the cards that I see being transacted that are not in forever homes and I see the graded populations. I've not quite figured out how to overcome those raw long term holding collections and the numbers just yet. Yes, there are a lot of them that the collectors, frankly some older than me, they're not integrating. But it's not that they're especially great shape, it's just they have what they have. They don't have dupes. If they found one, they kept it. Because collectors in the old days, they sold their dupes or traded off their dupes, but they didn't get rid of their singles. Yes, they're in collections and they're not graded. But have hope because those guys are older than me and I do tributes to them as some fabulous old time collectors. High integrity, sharp eye. Eventually when you have cards like that, you can't give them to your seven year old grandson. It doesn't make sense. This is big bucks. So the huge collections have to go to Heritage and some of the others. Then they come back into the hobby and they will be graded. If Heritage gets a bunch of these leaf shortprints, they're not going to put them up raw. Even Greg Morris is not going to put them up raw. There's too much of a grading Differential there. So have hope. Time is on your side. You're younger than me and you will live to see the day that those kinds of analyses and you may be the one doing it every year. It's going to get a little easier. David. For me, I have a bunch of my leaf shortprints graded by bgs. But I'm just one guy. But when I was on the show circuit before, I was doing price guides. I know who some of the people are that have them and they love them, David. They're enamored of it just like you are. But if they get sick or they don't have an heir or their heirs would prefer that be cashed in. These are about as liquid as you can get, I think. And I don't know that they're going up stratospherically right now because need more velocity of sales to get the hype train going. But these are really tough cards. The rookie card is the biggest thing. I think that's my sympathy for my contemporaries who collected and bought the cards, traded for the cards with that understanding if the rug is pulled out from under them because we have a more knowledgeable view based on your hard work, Brian's hard work. It just seems not fair to people that in good faith paid big bucks and presumed that a card that said 48 copyright on the back should be a 48 card. But it's not. But it might be 1948 artwork the next time the tougher Jackie comes out in a very nice grade. That's a low pop. And then it's the variation. And there's none finer for the variation than whoever has that. It's going to be the finest known. There'll be a new race because that Jackie is a glamour card big time. But as you said, the problem is when you submit it for grading, the grading company will not acknowledge that it is that. And they won't until there's a triggering event. And it's not your writing or me pontificating. It's going to be a big sale of the best. Jackie. That's the variation. And people say, wait a minute, Heads up here. What's going on with Babe and Joe DiMaggio. And I think Musial is an underappreciated guy anyway. I like the idea of Stan having two rookie cards. Frankly, the 48 Moment is not an attractive card. The 48 Leaf is interesting to me and colorful. The man in the house of God is doing color.