1947 Homogenized Bond Bread Del Ennis (or is it?)

After all the years I've collected baseball cards, I still get excited when I come across a baseball card that I didn't know existed from a set I've never heard of before.  I'm slowly collecting all the Phillies cards of Del Ennis, who was one of my Dad's favorite baseball players.  I recently added this card to my collection, although I'm not 100% certain if it's from 1947 or 1949 or if it's a decent reprint of the original, produced at some point in the 1980s.

The card was advertised as coming from the 1947 Homogenized Bond Bread set, which is listed in the Beckett database as the 1947 Homogenized Bond set.  According to the set's entry in the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, the unnumbered, blank-backed set consists of 48 cards issued with Bond Bread.  The description of the set goes on to mention that the cards can be found with either rounded corners or square corners.  My Ennis card has square corners.

Doing some research on the internet, some collectors believe that the rounded corner cards were originally issued in 1947 and the square corner cards were issued later, perhaps in 1949.  Still others believe that the square corner cards were part of a massive "find" in a New York warehouse in the 1980s, resulting in a flood of these presumably 1949-ish cards joining the collecting world.  Most vintage card collectors remain highly skeptical towards these square corner cards, deeming them little more than fakes.

After reading several articles, including a helpful article here and a post from The Vintage Sportscards Blog here, my Ennis card is definitely one of the cards that were "found" in the 1980s and I can't be sure if it's an original or not.  Nevertheless, I'm happy to have the card in my collection, and I'll be on the look-out for the clearly legitimate rounded corner Del Ennis card.  The card is of particular interest to any Ennis collector as it would technically be his rookie card, pre-dating his 1948-1949 Leaf card.

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Homogenize:  To treat milk so that the fat is mixed throughout instead of floating on top.  To break up the fat globules (of milk) into very fine particles especially by forcing through minute openings.

And now you know.

Image from the Palomar Skies blog