Not too long ago I took a look at Bowman's attempt to launch a baseball themed comic in the early days of 1948. As we've seen, Roger The Rookie Dodger sure seems like a precursor to that year's far more familiar Baseball set and the trio of other sets they released that year (Football, Basketball, and Movie Stars).
The 1948 Bowman Baseball set was the first major national release to commemorate the sport since 1941, although it seems to get very little hobby love today, possibly due to the black-and-white photos used across its 48 cards (nice symmetry there, eh?). Another problem may be that the vintage Bowman brand is not quite the shiny, rookie-laden thing it became once Topps reintroduced it three decades or so after they had snuffed it out.
That popularity problem is related to its key HOF rookies, or more precisely, lack thereof, as many of Bowman's 1948 subjects featured players who had already seen cards issued before the war started. While the entire rookie card support structure that was endlessly parsed in the 1980's stipulated the need for a nationally distributed set to attain such recognition, I'm not so sure the hobby at large agrees with that sentiment anymore and it doesn't work for anything but a handful of sets issued before 1933 anyway. I've always thought these gymnastics were a ploy by the major hobby publications back then to underpin their biggest advertisers and have seen nothing to really change my mind in the many years since I first picked up the premiere issue of Baseball Cards magazine back in 1981. I digress, but will re-digress momentarily.
The 1948 Bowman's feature fairly crisp photography:
The cards are almost square at 2 1/16" x 2 1/2" and feature very basic, plain backs:
I chose Johnny Mize to make a larger point. He's actually not one of the players caught up in the "nationally-issued" rookie card debate, at least as far as Bowman is concerned, but The Big Cat affords us an excellent look at how silly the debate can be.
National Chicle, a brand name that implies a coast-to-coast distribution, is known for a issuing just a few sets during their short company lifespan, among them the 1934-36 Batter-Up and Diamond Stars. These were both multi-year releases, quite popular at the time and both still pursued by many pre-war collectors. As Mize's MLB debut occurred after the cards had been produced, with his rookie season was going swimmingly, National Chicle gave him a slot in the Diamond Stars semi-oversized, blank-backed paper premium set we know today as R312:
That's a whole lot of pastel!
Now, is that his rookie card, even though it's on paper? Well, he was in some other sets between 1936 and 1941, where some were novelty issues - paper based incidentally - before a 4-in-1 Exhibit from 1938 got him onto some actual cardboard.
So is that 1938 Exhibit card considered his rookie card? Well...there's the matter of his 1941 Double Play cards, or even the 1947 Tip Top release, which was essentially a bunch of regionally issued sets with a unified look, and saw a lot of players receiving their first taste of cardboard. Were they the sets with his rookie card? Many hobbyists think not, as do many dealers.
"Despite having numerous earlier cardboard appearances, many vintage experts consider Johnny Mize's true rookie card to be 1948 Bowman."
And another from Dean's cards:
"All of the 1948 Bowman cards are considered 'Rookie Cards.'"
Now I want to make it clear I'm not picking on either of these fine sites, nor their creators and copy writers. I'm quoting them because they are two major selling sites familiar to many collectors and both reiterate the conventional hobby wisdom concerning Mize's 1948 Bowman card. But some collectors say a card, even if issued nationally, had to be issued in a pack to qualify as a true rookie card. Well, if that's the case, then the 1941 Double Play cards certainly fit the bill. But you can skin this particular big cat a few different ways still.
So what's the true Johnny Mize rookie card then? Is it the 1936 R312? The 1938 Exhibit? The 1941 Double Play? The 1947 Tip Top? One thing seems clear to me: it's certainly not the 1948 Bowman. I think there's a valid argument for the 1938 Exhibit as, to me at least, a premium like R312 is not quite the same thing as an issued card. Exhibits were widely distributed nationally as vending items, but so were cards from Topps and Bowman. Anyway, time to redirect this re-digression as this is a post about 1948 Bowman sets.
Once Baseball was done, Football was next, and it was a big step up at 108 cards, all featuring players from the NFL. The photos were still black-and-white (and the helmets still leather):
Think today's players are tough? This guy was getting his head bashed in wearing a fluffed up skull cap while running around with shrapnel in his hip:
The backs get a little more interesting now and we see the debut of premium offers on the cards; there were only a handful but the football ring is certainly sport-appropriate.
There was also a wrapper redemption offer for an album, REA had one some time ago; I assume the offer was tucked inside the packs or was part of an ad campaign as it doesn't appear on the wrapper:
The rookie card debate is moot with this set, the only football card set of any repute was National Chicle's 1935 release, although there was an Exhibit football set as well in 1948. It's also a non-factor with the 1948 Bowman Basketball set as essentially nothing existed covering the sport prior.
Still, while some subjects appear to have color photos, virtually all subjects had their uniforms enhanced and the added color really brightened these up. The premium offer remained, but specifically evolved on the ring, a nice touch:
The premium offer expiry date shows these were issued after Football debuted. The Basketball set had 72 subjects, with the players drawn for the Basketball Associated of America, an NBA precursor. But not all the cards had players, some offered diagrammed plays:
The backs were very basic on these cards and I'd imagine the idea was you would save them as a reference.
I can't find any record of an album for these, nor for the baseball cards either. There was one final release for 1948, a 36 subject set of Movie Stars.
It's pretty cool that Ms. Arden's premium offer was squarely aimed at girls; there were "lovely handkerchiefs" and a "personalized photo-brooch" available too, in case you wanted to fully accessorize your youthful ensemble:
That expiry date has this last in the 1948 Bowman release schedule. These have no album that I can find either but there was a snazzy (and quite rare) wrapper:
That wrapper image is from moviecard.com but I'm getting a virus warning for the site so proceed with caution if you head over there.
See ya in 1949!
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