1949 Leaf Theory

[yanks87]

Speaking of the uncut sheet, if it is real, it confirms the wholesale changes that were made to update the cards. The only one that is a little bit of a head scratcher is the population of the Aberson sleeve variations.

In the image, it shows the 3 "accepted" variations:
Aberson - Short Sleeve PSA/SGC Pop: 95/29 - 124 total
Peterson - Dark Cap PSA/SGC Pop: 144/16 - 160 total
Hermanski* - Full Name PSA/SGC Pop: 231/97 - 328 total

The Variation populations on these:
Aberson - Long Sleeve PSA/SGC Pop: 154/24 - 178 total
Peterson - Red Cap PSA/SGC Pop: 86/24 - 110 total
Hermansk* - Missing I PSA/SGC Pop: 97/4 - 101 total

In theory the total number of Aberson short sleeve cards should be higher than the long sleeve, but from the looks of it, older grades did not delineate between the two versions for both grading houses. I put the * on Hermanski as it really falls into the category of "inking error" to me. If the numbers tell the story, there is a slightly smaller population of the second printing, but if you search the bigger cards, the variations seem to be much more rare than 30%. On a quick visual search of Heritage past sales, 156 Jackie Robinson's sold (not accounting for doubles) only 17 are from the second printing (no hat detail, color bar connecting background to name plate). That to me shows rarity in variation.

The research continues.