3x4.25” thin glossy paper sheet/page. Extremely rare and uncatalogued Cuban baseball issue produced in conjunction w/Trinidad Y Hno cigarettes during the 1948-49 Winter League season. A complete set totaling 72 ballplayers is comprised of baseball stars from each of the four professional baseball clubs in Cuba at that time: Almendares, Habana, Cienfuegos and Marianao. Very similar in appearance to the catalogued 1946-47 Cuban Almanaque Deportivo issue, each of the four teams had individual booklets produced. These Cuban baseball booklets are nearly impossible to find intact, w/most surviving examples exhibiting extreme handling wear. A total of 52 different player pages were printed among the four booklets w/20 depicting Cuban ballplayers on both the front and back while the remaining examples exhibit advertising and player names/brief bios on back. Fronts have been colorized and depict either portraits or posed action photos inside a wide white border with player name at bottom. Offered as the next two lots in this auction are two other National Baseball Hall of Famers who both starred in the U.S. Negro Leagues as well as the Cuban Winter Leagues, Minnie Minoso and Monte Irvin. In future auctions, we will be offering the remaining 69 other Negro/Cuban League greats from this issue, thus the opportunity exists for the saavy collector to pick up a complete set. Buck Leonard entered professional baseball w/the Brooklyn Royal Giants during the 1933 Negro League baseball season. Following his debut, Leonard would join the Homestead Grays in 1934 and team up with Josh Gibson beginning a couple of years later to form the greatest one-two punch in Negro League baseball history, possibly only topped by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in MLB. Those 1930s-40s Grays would become Negro League baseball’s greatest dynasty for more than a decade. Buck was rewarded with the ultimate honor of being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. This incredible treasure represents the only individual appearance of Buck Leonard on a third party graded career contemporary baseball collectible. Page has been carefully separated from the booklet, is bright and clean, and displays fantastically as encapsulated and designated “Authentic” by CGC. A review of the PSA and SGC pop reports reveals that only two other examples have ever been third party graded, both by SGC, w/each of these receiving the same “Authentic” designation as the one we are offering here. A rare artifact for the baseball historian. Richard Merkin Collection.