Out On A Limb For A Leaf

I am not a huge vintage person.  I am not a huge vintage person if I can put my own two eyes on the card in person.  The best way to quickly summarize my collection of vintage cards is that it is almost exclusively Cardinals cards and there is nothing that is too over the top.  I have been writing on The Snorting Bull for three years and almost everything on here is modern.  Usually when I make a post about an older card, I am talking about something from the 80s or 90s, not 40s, 50s, or 60s.   I tossed out a few of those rules two weeks ago and took a bit of a gamble on a vintage card that looked really good.

This is a 1948-1949 Leaf Stan Musial card.  I have plenty of Stan cards, but have really been interested in going back and rounding out my collection with some nice vintage pieces.  Over the past year I have spent plenty of time looking, window shopping, and asking questions.  Vintage is a different world, not my collecting area of expertise, but I think I did pretty well with this card.  

My biggest concern with buying vintage is always the condition.  I love the 1971 Topps set, which is the only older set that I own a significant amount of non-Cardinals cards, but the shape and condition of the cards can sometimes be rough.  I have also had collectors send me cards which looked awesome in scans, but in person were less than desirable.  Things like, "Oh, I did not mention there was a gum stain on the back" or "Yes, I kept all my cards in mint condition, but I did write my name on the back of the card, sorry I did not think that was important"  I am a little skeptical.  

My newest Stan has four nice corners and is pretty well centered.  The card is off center slightly left to right and top to bottom, but not too badly.  The white frame around the card also has not yellowed badly which seems to be a problem with some of the cards in this set.