Sept. 20, 2024
Ep.302 w/ Brian Kappel Part 2
My guest returns this week, Brian Kappel is a collector and author of the book "Re:Leaf", which deep dives the original Leaf candy and card company, in the process Brian has probably solved some mysteries with the 1948-49 Leaf Baseball set. We discuss that and more!
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[Music] people Sports
Nation what is up welcome to episode 302 of sports card Nation happy to be back
and also happy to be back with part two in the conclusion of our great
conversation with Brian kapple who wrote the book re e leaf relief great book we
talked about it some last week we're going to revisit it uh as well this week and some hobby stuff it's not all 100%
book but great book uh Brian did his super do diligence and uh uh again
solved what I believe are some 1948 49 leaf histories so read the book and
and you'll know or listen to part two and part one of the interview and you'll you'll know what we're talking about
quick 30 second break and we'll be on with Brian kapple for nearly 50 years
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[Music] 5561 here is the conclusion of our
interview with Brian kapple since the books come out and have have is there
anyone that will like like I said I'm was a 48 Leaf guy and I can't really argue this assuming it's the truth which
we have to in a court of law right is anyone still sort of like B have you had
any like feedback like hey it's still 48 Leaf to me or that you know or or or
have you had I guess my question is are more people like me and like great work Brian I now ring not it's 49 Leaf I
think you you solved the mystery or do you have some you know stubborn people if you will that like I don't care what
the court document says yeah so I think it's it's a it's a mishmash right it's a little bit of both because I think to a
certain degree well how about this on the grading side I don't think it'll ever happen I I I think that either SGC
or Becket has started putting 49 on there if the copyright is 49 so that
that's kind of a win but not really I think the the here like so so here's an SGC this is my Jackie this is my Grail
there you go um and and it's 4849 on here so you're covering they're
covering they're covering their butts they're covering their bases yeah so I think you're GNA see that because again
with the copyrights on there and and what's fascinating is when you dig into 49 cards right that were basically on a
printing plate on the sheet that they would produce it was an even split for short prints and the the main printing
of how many had 48 and how many had 49 copyrights so you know again the the the
as I dug in you know there was all the stuff that was living on the boards ahead of time basically saying hey look
at the backs of the cards there's things that are happening on here that are in November that are in December that
they're acknowledging on the cards and that's trades that's when the MVP awards went out and everything like that and
you look at the runway that would be left for distributing cards that would go out the problem comes is that those
cards that would go out with the 1948 they never packaged short prints with the main print cards so you wouldn't
just send out 1948 cards you would have to send out everything that was on that sheet and there's an even split of 48
and 49 so it's just it the more you kind of dig into it it makes sense right where you're just like okay these
obviously came out in 49 and I think the the problem is work happened in 48 and I
think that's why you see a lot of those cards in 48 you know have the copyright of 1948 on them the things that I think
are interesting is like you know Hal newhouser which is a short print rookie card super difficult to find has a 1948
copyright and it has two versions and so that's where I kind of jump into the whole idea of the salesman samples I
think in 48 they probably produced a sheet of of salesman samples and I think a lot of them look exactly like the main
run of the cards and that's for football boxing all that stuff but you get the outliers there's a a there's the the
hell newhouser there's the uh Marciano that that you know is numbered to 50 but
never I mean I think there's only six that are known to exist and then um there's Joe Le those that are scoring at
home if that's the that's less than Honus Wagner D yeah yeah I mean that's the thing is you start digging into
populations on some of those things and you're just like and and the thing that I missed and I'm kicking myself to this
day but there's a picture of it in the book is there was a Joe leis with a blue background that that hit and that's not
the the main issue that that came out it went to a white black white background with a red border around and so I I
think that that because there was work going on in 48 I think the industry the hobby most people will refer to him as
1948 cards because there is that copyright on there I don't think it's a distribution date now the push back from
the grading companies is you're gonna get a lot of people that are going to be you know pretty mad about the fact that
they're Jackie Robinson Now isn't a 48 card it's a 49 card and it's not a true
rookie card because it came out in 49 not 48 fact of the matter is leaf still hit the marketplace before Bowman did that's why
Bowman sued him so so it's like you know you can dig into it and be like well it kind of still I still I still I still
love my Jackie card it's a great card and I think that's the thing is is you
know as people say and one that I live by is the whole you know buy the card not the grade I think that's the thing
is buy the card not the story behind it too I mean if it's it's right in the range there weren't many cards outside
of regional issues that hit from that 47 to 48 time frame for a Jackie so it's
like so you've got two great cards that you can pick from in 49 The Bowman and the leaf and I think they're both you
know they both look fantastic and they're both you know great cards so I I think it's very uh I I think people are
are open to calling them 49 Leaf cards but I think that you have to kind of walk through all the stuff behind it
because it's so cemented in the industry the way it is right now that people are a little slow to kind of accept it type
thing it'll be interesting to see like to me if I'm one of the grading companies and I get word of this and I I
read the book or I see the court document I think from now on you almost have to label them as 49 Le now like you
said whether they do that or not and I don't think you know I I know the fear for graded card company oh now we got to
reholder all the ones prior that maybe have the wrong flip so to speak I don't
think think you necessarily have to do that I think just going forward you just grade him as 194 it doesn't change the
card like like you said in in the holder it's not a different set it's just now
it's come to light that you know that if someone wants it reholder it costs 12 15
bucks they they can they they can foot that bill if it if it bothers them
enough where they want to flip to illustrate actuality right but other
than that I think the grading C companies from from this point forward let's say could just put them in there
as 1949 leaves and anyone else that has like mine that says 48 49 if it doesn't
bother me but if it did and I wanted to Pony up 15 bucks and just get a a new
holder you know I don't think there's anything wrong with that you know no I I don't either and I think that that
that's what you know the the argument that I kind of make in there and have made to PSA about it is you know there
there was a change that happened on the fly for t206 cards you know when when PSA started grading t26 cards that's all
they put on the the label was t206 and then there was this kind of outcry for well we want the you know what's the
back okay so now we're going to put pedmont we're going to put sweet Caporal we're going to put you know polar bear on the back of it though well what about
the factories you know so it's like all these in in me at least to me it's like
the the evolution of of grading is is the the finding of knowledge and being able to get more finite in exactly what
it is because if their purpose is to be like the holder of all the information in order to Accurate you know accurately
grade a card and depicted in a way that's like okay this is a this yeah this is a a red portrait Tai Cobb but
it's a factory 25 sweet Koral so it's actually worth more than you know or you got a factory 42 pedon or something like
that and and I think that what that shows me and is the what I would be paying for the service for is they're
the bank of knowledge that it's like they know all these little things that take this these two cards that are
almost exactly the same and you get down in the finite details and like okay but this one's actually more because it's rarer than this one is here and so
that's why it's been a little I don't know funny shocking I don't know I guess whatever it is that that PSA is pushed
back so hard on it that they just kind of devalue it whenever I reach out to them and just kind of say oh yeah we
know about the color variations I'm like not talking about those just something else in fact you guys are already doing
it look at Kent Peterson I don't want to speak I want to speak for him Brian or I'm not defending them I I just almost
think they don't want to get in the middle I don't want to say controversy but into like a debate and and if I
think if they took a stance there's collectors out there that would who don't recognize it and that would argue
against them so I almost think they're like they're like want to be a wall they just want to stay against the wall and
let whatever happen in front of them I think it's more Jim Becket said the same thing basically he's like you know
you're gonna get a lot of people that are going to be pretty myth that that you know oh I I bought this card but you're saying that there's one that's
worth more well then I would have bought that now it's been misrepresented and all this kind of stuff instead of it being like this rolling evolution of it
it's like you know so I think if anything it's probably going to be and it has been because I've done a couple
different shows like I was down in Nashville in in July and just talking with people about it and it was
fascinating watching people you know come day one read the book come back day two with the reference section that's in
the middle and go jumping into everybody value bins and then running over to my table going did did I get a late
Printing and I'm like okay yeah I mean this is what you know and all this kind of stuff so I think that if nothing else
if uh someone who's interested in the set all of a sudden has a new look or a fresh look at it and says wow there's
actually more to this there's another layer of collecting that I can go after in this then then I've done my job
because I I mean that's what I enjoy doing is going through and picking things out and what's funny is uh about
two years ago in Strongsville Ohio I went to the Vintage show there which is just a great show yeah and this was you
know mid all of the research and everything like this it's always like my dad and I were were well versed in all
the little things that were going on with the cards and so we were kind of looking out for stuff and I had picked up a a Gerald pretty card and I I kind
of you know pulled it out of the value bin looked over my dad I'm like missing the blue because on that card he's got a
band of green that goes in back of him and he's like oh 12 bucks perfect pick it up so randomly you know as I'm
sitting there as I do one night I'm like well if there's one of them that means there's four of them because that's the way the cards were printed because
someone had sent me a picture of a demaggio that was missing the black plate from a show that he was I think it
was Shan Tilly and he's like is this one of one and I'm like no technically it's one of four because there's four printed
on each sheet so if the black had run out which happened often um that that
means there's four dagios that look exactly like that and uh so I was like well it' be kind of fun to track down
the other four or other three Gerald pretty cards so I went on eBay because you know that's what you do and to my
surprise there was six of them on eBay so I'm like all right so that means two sheets went through with no blue ink and
there's six of these that were produced the funny thing about it is that the lowest price on one of those cards was
$1,200 the highest price was $5,000 I had got mine for $12 and they called it the non-green
band variation so but what it was is the fact that the blue ink had run out that was one my one of my next questions too
Brian are dealers pricing some of these variations in um that know about them
are they pricing them Accord are they or or not necessarily I haven't seen anybody kind of lean in on it and every
time that I talk to a dealer they're like yeah yeah that's nice you know so I don't think anyone has has come around
to seeing that hey I've got five Jackies and of the five I've got one that's got
a true blue no detail hat and two yellow bars that come down on the sides and
that one should be about 30% higher than anything else that kind of lives in that grade level so I don't think that
information is has hit or been readily accepted yet at that kind of dealer
level yet and I think there's you know for people who are interested in the set and like digging and hunting for Stuff
um I think there's a lot of things that are out there that are a lot of fun to go grab yeah a little treasure hunt now
uh in there it may eventually happen know the deal it could very well it's
it's interesting especially going on eBay and putting in you know a player like Johnny hop and just seeing how many
of those kind of pop up and have a black hat and then how many of them have a blue hat that's all it is you can see
the early printings you can see the late printings and like you said it's about a 30% difference time for a quick break
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hotline sports card nation has returned
now you you know you've made this set are you have you completed or are you in
the process like are you trying to get like a master set with all the the color variations is that I you know there's a
bunch of guys out there that that do try and get every representation of all the colors I I'm not that I I'm very happy I
finished the set I finished it in my way right I I'm not a I need a PSA 8 or I'm
not happy or a PSA I'm like if it's in the door I'm good so when I was going through and getting down towards the end
of it I kept on making the joke to people I'm like I just need a corner of a Satchel Page and I'll be happy in the
ultimate irony the card that I ended up getting which was on like the last page of a Heritage Sunday sale that just was
hanging out there with no bids on it um had all the borders cut off and so I was
looking for a corner of a satchel and got a satchel with no corners so you know it it's in the house so it's uh
yeah and I you know I got it for a very reasonable amount and so it's uh my set
came together in a very uh costeffective way because I was more happy just to have the cards than to you know get the
most pristine one out there but that being said like you said if you're at a show and you see something and it's
reasonable you'll you'll add it to oh yeah I've got of you know I I have the proverbial shoe box of The Oddities and
stuff like that I I love after going through writing the book knowing the process learning the process all that
kind of stuff and it kind of immersing it I I'm a full-on leaf junkie now where it's like if I see something that's off
registration in a really weird way I buy it in a heartbeat if I see something
that's got a missing back buy it if I see something that has a you know I've got a uh was it Choo Cho Justice from
the football set I've got one that has no Black Ink on the front so it's just a ghosted image on there I love it I think
it's fantastic because again knowing the backstory behind it makes it that much more fun to kind of dig in and find
things and so it's like the George vco card is one that I talk about in the book and so whenever I find those
because he does have a late print version where basically the the blue of his background bleeds into his hat I buy
those all the time and I give him away as presents to people because I'm just like it's just such a I think it's a dynamic looking card anyway but uh
whenever I see him I'm like oh yeah I'll buy him so yeah it's just it's so it's is even but outside like you said even
outside the baseball set there there's so many Back stories and and and
storylines and whatnot and you know the leaf cards I know they're they're not going to win Design Awards but they you
know at the time Co colored cards were not common against the 48 Bowman so
while they had some errors and they couldn't get maybe color consistency right Brian they still were attractive
in the fact that hey look we have color on our our trading cards here now absolutely I think that was I think that
was some of the lore especially with with kids at the time right and uh you
know you know so you know we got it hats off to for you know for that regardless
of some of the mistakes that followed or some of the unscrupulous stuff to skip numbering um it was you know the the Lee
family was Innovative uh in many ways and uh so we got to kind of give uh
credit uh where where credits too yeah absolutely well and it's funny looking at their full assortment like you said
before you said it was kind of a chachki and and it very much was I mean you know looking at the when I was at the Chicago
History Museum a lot of the effects that were in that estate were just you know sales cataloges and the stuff that they
would put in with things was just it was funny to me but looking back at it in 1948 I don't know that many people were
doing that you you know doing the the plastic pumpkins at Halloween and and crazy stuff for Christmas and all this
kind of stuff but again it it's like it was another gimmick for and I'm going to go through and this is how we're going
to sell the candy yeah and they did they sold quite a bit of candy so you know
hats up they they knew what they were doing uh in some respect talk about the
the process of of writing a book like how long did it take you start to finish
it was probably about a two-year process and and you know I I'm self-employed I've got my own business and so this
became my basically like the the 5 am. to 6 am. thing is that there was days that I would come down and I would just
write if I had found something I I would you know try and you know blow it out and stuff like that if I was trying to
build context of what was going on in the country at the time then I'd focus on that and you know was able to go through you know my sister who's a a
college professor you know she kind of helped me outline okay let's let's try and get some kind of flow in what we're
doing here and so once I had that outline then I was basically just working against that once I got the the
preliminary writing done um I kind of passed it off to a friend who was an editor and then started passing it
around to you know my kids my wife everybody else who was willing to read it type thing and got some great
feedback there and then I started working on the kind of visual elements because again since I do design you know
it's like you know if this was going to be the only book that I was going to do I was gonna go for broke and I was going
to design every single element of it down to the little cartoons on the on the chapters and stuff like that and so it's like all right I'm just going to go
through and I'm GNA do this whole thing up so you know there's a shift when it was out editing that I was going through
and trying to get the look of everything together and trying to get all the images together and then when we kind of
put everything together uh that's when my dad and my sister kind of hit me with the well you got to reference all those
pictures and you got you gotta site this and you gota I'm like oh good you know
so it was a it took about two years and it was it was ready to go at the end of
April this year we launched it on May 6th and and uh it's been great and it's so it's been selling online really well
and then uh I I go out and I try and do shows whenever I can if we're out traveling and stuff like that I'll set
up a table and usually sell between 10 15 books every time that I go to some place but
it's really more about the conversations that I kind of have in between which has been great and I think that that to me has been kind of the gold is is uh
because I'm not retiring off what I'm making off the book that's for darn sh but uh I uh I I've really enjoyed uh
connecting with collectors and kind of just talk and Shop with a set that I'm passionate about and kind of leaning in
on other people's passions about the set as well yeah well it's well let me ask you this before I I talk a little little
bit about the little plug for the book I mean now you're you you you you know you
you you're an author now you did your there another book is there another book in the pipeline like yes and no um so
it's interesting because I think we're probably gonna take a sid step from I say we because again my my dad's kind of
my partner in crime when it comes to just you know me getting up in the morning and bouncing crazy ideas off
somebody he's usually the first one I call uh I've been enamored with the 1940
Superman issues so we might take a jump into non-sport though I'm having a little bit of a difficult time figuring
out the licensing that would go into writing that book right now um just because you know it's such a behemoth
and trying to get any kind of Licensing or or permissions from Warner Brothers DC is is proving to be a little bit on
the difficult side but again I I think the interest there is the fact that you know gum card Inc becomes Bowman so it's
it's like you start you know another thread gets tied to a story you know so these interesting stories that kind
of run across the board so well we might do that or or there are a couple other things that we think are kind of interesting so there there might be
another book that kind of comes in line with uh with collecting we want to try and run this one out because we're
actively kind of in the the Superman weeds right now and that one's just a fun one tragic story on on the rights of
Superman but uh the card representations through the years are just absolutely fascinating yeah well re Leaf uh
excellent read I'm holding it up again and like you you know the design element
I mean look at the back it's the rapper and plenty of plenty of photos to illustrate a lot of the thoughts and
facts that that are in here even a cover has a a feel to it too Kudos uh on that
but uh listen you don't even have to necessarily be a fan of Lee for the
whole you know dilemma 4849 it's an interesting hobby book for for anyone that loves
hobby history which I do uh you know but then for me like get the whole Jackie tie in uh my Grail card and and just
being in in content creation right you always have the debates what year it is and like I said I was always a 48 Guy
Brian I think uh I think now I I have to be honest uh you know while may may have
like it starts in 48 as far as like on the blueprint the production was was 49
I think uh I think the book uh kind of solves that mystery you know sometimes
we watch these shows right where they're going to claim to solve the mystery and then you watch the show and at the end
you're still in the same place I think this book this book is a little bit not
a little I think it's different because now we have you know in this case Court documentation testimony to when the
first truck not only the date the first truck r but where it went to which was
Boston so we have details that have never been known before or at least
discussed on that level and so some of these ends are are kind of tied off now
and so you know and I don't I don't think you know for me saying it's 49 doesn't change my perception of the
cards it's just the year you know it's one year to to be exact so um really
less if you look it on a calendar probably but you know so but it's it's
you know your your dedication and research and and that we're we're we can
have this I I'll say finale and at least on some of these uh questions I think we we've got answers now and uh I think
that's important right we I'm I think as a country we care about history I think as a hobby some of us care about history
some may some may not but those that do I think we have some answers now and I think that's that's important and it's
due to your your diligence and and getting in there and getting in the mud
and and and getting dirty and finding all these things right just amazes me
that it took you know 70 something years to really get some some answers and
we've we've had you know some big name uh hobbyists that but you did it so uh
again great job by you it's an excellent book uh I always give the guest the final word where people can find you
you're doing social media where they can get the book all take your time give all that stuff out yeah the the book is
available on Amazon if you search uh relaf um it's it's on Amazon and you can
also go through uh relief book.com it's h available there and then uh on
Instagram it's I think it's reor Leaf book and so I'm there and then uh if you don't find it there you can always go
through space monkey designs which is my design company as well well some stuff I
think we broke some news that there might be another book uh in in the works at some point there so and knowing how
this book turned out I'm sure it'll be uh well I'm not a comic I was a comic book kid I'm not a comic book guy but
I'm sure you'll you'll do with Justice and uh it'll be a great book uh as well
Brian thanks again for for making some time thank you for not only coming on the show but doing all that that due
diligence and get getting some answers some hobby questions that at times we probably wondered if we'd ever get a
definitive answer and yet here we are yeah John thanks for the opportunity to come on and talk about it like I said
this has been a passion project for two years and and it's it's great to see people uh reacting to it and and being
open to talk about it and I look forward to kind of keep on moving forward and I'll I'll let you know any books that
that are going to drop before they do well well maybe a part maybe a a relief part two as maybe some more maybe this
stirs up some other stuff and it could it could very well I mean yeah you never know when the information's going to
come and and you know we didn't even get a chance to talk about the premiums or the boxing or the the salesman samples
and stuff like that but it's all in the book yeah yeah that I don't want to give everything away I yeah exactly don't
want to spoil it all so well again thanks Brian get the book uh it's uh it's a great read
believe me I'm not a huge reader and I tore through this pretty quickly so there you go awesome right thanks again
to Brian kapple for sharing some of the insights and behind the scenes of
putting this great book together and even though we talked about about it the details a lot of other stuff in that
book from illustrations explanations so uh plenty more nuggets in that book go out and get
it it's relief re leaf and uh 121 pages
won't take you super long which you'll be so much more knowledgeable not only about the 1949 leap set but the hobby as
well it's a great great book time for our hobby is the people
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