New in the Gallery: 1949 Leaf Football Cards
April 25th, 2011 | Published in New in the Gallery
Over the weekend I added 1949 Leaf football cards to the Vintage Football Card Gallery. It is quite an unexciting set: the fronts of 1949 Leaf cards are identical to the fronts of 1948 Leaf cards, and there are no new players–and hence, no rookie cards–in the 1949 set. The 1949 set is also just half the size of the 1948 set: 49 cards versus 98. Whereas the 1948 Leaf set contains both NFL and college players, the 1949 set contains just NFL players.
Leaf changed the backs of the cards in 1949, so it actually is easy to tell the two years apart. My earlier article, L is for Leaf, includes pictures of the backs of both 1948 and 1949 cards. Leaf also changed the card numbers in 1949. The 1949 Leaf set is skip-numbered, with numbers scattered between 1 and 150, presumably to fool kids into thinking there were more cards available to buy.
