Our newest edition on The Most Impressive Unopened Finds is the ULTIMATE “do you rip it?” temptation. Coming to auction this Spring is a sealed wax pack of 1948 Leaf baseball cards.
Alan “Mr. Mint” Rosen was one of the most prominent purchasers of cards for decades before passing away at the age of 70 in 2017. Mr. Mint discovered over 6,000 fresh 1952 Topps cards in a find back in 1986 that included 50 Mickey Mantle rookie cards. The cards from his find are the top-graded and most valuable Mantles in the hobby today. Rosen has pages of legendary finds on his resume including 200 + boxes of 1954 Bowman cards and almost a full case of 1962 Topps cards. Mr. Mint would go on “buying trips” around the Country and while rare, it was possible to find buried gold in attics. From one of Mr. Mint’s treasure hunts came this sealed wax pack from 1948 Leaf baseball cards.
1948 Leaf baseball cards have 98 total cards in the set. The cards are 2 ⅜” x 2 ⅞” in size. For comparison, a card today is 2 ½” x 3 ½ “. The color on the 1948 set is spectacular! This was the first set of cards to feature colors post-World War II. There really were no card sets released for a few years previous due to war restrictions. The products needed to make the cards such as cardboard, ink, and that tasty gum, had to be placed on hold. When Leaf released their 1948 cards, this incredible set contained stunning images of Babe Ruth (card #3), rookie cards of Jackie Robinson (#79), Satchel Paige (#8) Stan Musial (#4), Warren Spahn (#32), and other legends such as Joe DiMaggio (#1) and Ted Williams (#76).
Memory Lane Inc. auctions is offering this sealed 1948 Leaf baseball wax pack in their Spring Auction. Inside are 5 pack-fresh cards that haven’t seen the light of day in about 74 years. Think of how the world has changed since this pack rolled off the assembly line. For starters, you wouldn’t be on CardBreaks.com; there was no Internet. The Cleveland Indians won the World Series that year. Forget about downloading songs, CDs or cassette tapes – the LP record was JUST invented in 1948. What will the price tag be? In 2017 a sealed pack was auctioned at Robert Edwards auction and the price tag was $57,000. In the 2017 auction, the house states that it was the only pack they had ever seen. Mr. Mint’s pack is just that rare; truly an Impressive Unopened Find.
Just imagine if this pack were to be ripped in a card break? The buy-in price would have to be over $10,000 per card, BUT – just think – you could land a pack-fresh Jackie Robinson rookie card. We’ll leave you with that question: If you owned this 1948 Leaf baseball card pack, would you open it?
