If you’ve snuck a peek at the PSA Set Registry anytime in the last ten years, you’ve seen it atop all registered sets of 1948 Leaf baseball. A cardboard unicorn of virtually impossible high-grade cards from a production run that was notorious for overprints and off-center cards galore. Now, the old gang is breaking up.
All of the cards in the long-running number one-ranked set have been consigned to Heritage Auctions’ Fall Trading Card catalog where they are expected to sell for over $1 million combined.
Pieced together by a long-time collector who had worked on upgrading it for many years, the 101-card set includes 56 cards that are equal to the hobby’s best known copies and 19 that are the highest graded cards with none better. It’s the only set on the Registry with a weighted grade of over 8.0.
Among the cards that are being offered: A PSA 9 Jackie Robinson rookie card; a PSA 9 Stan Musial (1 of 3 at that level); a PSA 8 example of the rare Satchel Paige rookie card and a PSA 10 Honus Wagner–one of just three cards in the entire set ever rated at that level. The Paige, Robinson and Musial cards are expected to sell for over $250,000 each. At least a dozen others could surpass $10,000 based on current bidding. The Paige card currently sits at $170,000 with the auction set to run for another week.
Designated a 1948 issue thanks to dating on the reverse but generally now believed to have been released in 1949, the Leaf set was issued in two series. Famous for the scarce Paige and early Robinson cards, it also includes Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and a Babe Ruth, no doubt issued as a tribute following the 1948 death of the original home run king.
There are 98 different subjects in the set and the collection being offered through Heritage also includes the three variations (Gene Hermanski, Cliff Aberson and Kent Peterson, for a total of 101 lots.
Auction bidding is open through November 15.
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