Did Leaf Freeze Out Bowman in 1949?

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I have long wondered why there was no 1949 Bowman FB set. Looking at it semi-logically (half-assed, if you will) it seems Bowman had the FB market locked up until Topps bought them after the '55 season but did Leaf have it so locked up in '49 that Bowman decided to punt?

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Posted By: Chris Counts

That's a great question. It seems to me that if Bowman made a '49 football set, it would probably have looked like the '49 baseball set. But I'll bet their baseball cards far outsold their football cards, and Bowman was too busy to make a football set in the summer of '49 because they a) were adding a late series to the '49 baseball set, and b) were busy gearing up for the following baseball season, when they would unveil the first of a series of much more ambitious and attractive sets. I've long believed the Bowman sets from '50-'53 are among the finest baseball cards ever produced (the Bowman '50-52 football are equally amazing), and it must have taken a great effort to create and reproduce the first set in particular of such high quality images.

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

Chris-yes Bowman cards from the period you mentioned are among the best designed cards in the post war era. They had a number of stellar non-sport sets as well in there.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Warren Bowman would sue anyone (or anything) at the drop of a dime. Early in 1949 the Bowman
Gum Co. took the Leaf Gum Co. to court over the use of words "BASEBALL BUBBLE GUM" on Leaf's
wrapper.
Bowman had copyrighted this saying on their 1948 wrapper. The litigation then expanded over the
contractual rights to portray BB players in their sets. The rights to portray Joe DiMaggio, Satchel
Paige, and other major stars were part of this dispute.

Bowman won the BB card "war" and Leaf was forced to discontinue portraying BB players. Bowman's
concession to Leaf was that Leaf could issue their FB set and Bowman would not issue a FB set in
1949.

That's the story, guys.

TED Z

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Posted By: John E

Given that they lost, I guess I would have preferred Leaf get out of the business altogether rather putting out that half a**ed '49 football set.