Uncut Sheets of 1948 Leaf Football Cards
I have never seen an uncut sheet of 1948 Leaf football cards, but I believe I have determined what the sheets looked like. There are 98 cards in the 1948 Leaf set, and they would have fit evenly onto two 7x7 sheets.
I have seen an uncut sheet of 1949 Leaf cards; it appeared in an online auction. Since the 1949 Leaf set is basically a subset of the 1948 Leaf set with the card backs and numbers changed, I thought that Leaf might have modified a 1948 sheet to get the 1949 sheet. So I pretended that the 1949 sheet was a 1948 sheet, and I wrote down the 1948 card numbers. This is how they looked:
| 43 | 36 | 29 | 22 | 54 | 8 | 1 |
| 44 | 37 | 50 | 23 | 16 | 9 | 68 |
| 45 | 97 | 65 | 64 | 17 | 10 | 3 |
| 46 | 39 | 75 | 25 | 18 | 88 | 80 |
| 53 | 82 | 33 | 26 | 19 | 12 | 77 |
| 48 | 86 | 34 | 27 | 85 | 13 | 6 |
| 49 | 42 | 35 | 28 | 21 | 14 | 7 |
If you ignore the cards with numbers above 49, a pattern emerges: starting with card number 1 at the top right, you add 1 to each card number to get the number of the card below. When you reach the bottom of a column, you move to the top of the next column to the left. My conclusion is that the first 1948 Leaf sheet was numbered as shown in the following table. In 1949, Leaf started with this 1948 sheet, substituted a few cards from the second 1948 sheet, and changed the backs. The 1949 Leaf set contains NFL players only, and the 1948 cards that Leaf replaced on this sheet in 1949--cards 2, 4, 5, etc.--were those of the college players.
| 43 | 36 | 29 | 22 | 15 | 8 | 1 |
| 44 | 37 | 30 | 23 | 16 | 9 | 2 |
| 45 | 38 | 31 | 24 | 17 | 10 | 3 |
| 46 | 39 | 32 | 25 | 18 | 11 | 4 |
| 47 | 40 | 33 | 26 | 19 | 12 | 5 |
| 48 | 41 | 34 | 27 | 20 | 13 | 6 |
| 49 | 42 | 35 | 28 | 21 | 14 | 7 |
This is what the first sheet of 1948 Leaf cards would have looked like, except that a real uncut sheet would not have lines between the cards. If you hold your cursor above any of the cards, your browser should show you the name of the player and the number of the card. Clicking on a card will bring up the full-sized scan.
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Continuing the numbering pattern from the first sheet, the second sheet would have been numbered as follows. The eight cards in green are the scarcest cards in the set in high grade, according to PSA's population report.
| 92 | 85 | 78 | 71 | 64 | 57 | 50 |
| 93 | 86 | 79 | 72 | 65 | 58 | 51 |
| 94 | 87 | 80 | 73 | 66 | 59 | 52 |
| 95 | 88 | 81 | 74 | 67 | 60 | 53 |
| 96 | 89 | 82 | 75 | 68 | 61 | 54 |
| 97 | 90 | 83 | 76 | 69 | 62 | 55 |
| 98 | 91 | 84 | 77 | 70 | 63 | 56 |
The second sheet would have looked like this:
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To see how the 1949 Leaf sheet was configured, see my 1949 Leaf uncut sheet page.
For general information on uncut sheets of vintage football cards, see my blog article, U is for Uncut Sheets. Also see my other virtual uncut sheets, listed in the left column of this page.
Copyright 2008-2012, Nearmint's Vintage Football Cards