I think they're all there

 

Yesterday, a neighbor from the next street over came to the door with an envelope.

 

He handed it to my wife and told her it had been delivered to his address by mistake. The address on the envelope, sure enough, was my address with my name. The envelope, as you can tell, contained a huge rip on the right side.

 

My neighbor, who I have never met, said that he had ripped it open thinking it was for him -- I guess he didn't see the address. Then he said to my wife, "I think it's some kind of baseball cards."

 

My wife said the guy was very pleasant and didn't seem to know anything about baseball cards, but I couldn't help but get a little suspicious -- it just comes with knowing how the modern hobby works these days. Were all the cards in the envelope really all there?

 

The envelope didn't have a return address, but I can tell by the printing on the front, and by the contents, that this was kindly sent by Jeffrey at Cardboard Catastrophes. And only he can tell whether all of the cards that I pulled from the envelope were all the ones he sent.

 

Here's a closer look:

 

I was very happy to see this, even though I treat Kellogg's cards now like dynamite and am afraid to look at them wrong. This '75 Bake McBride has been a want for a long time, as the one I own is cracked to bits. I will do my best to ensure this card avoids the same fate, although I feel like I have zero control over it.

 

Some 1971 Laughlin Fleer World Series cards for my collection. I haven't done a lot with these lately, and I need to pick up the slack. I believe Jeff's collecting this set, too, and probably doing a lot better job at it.

The '71s are called "black backs," distinguishing them from the '70 World Series "blue backs," although I tell the two apart from the fronts. 1970s have a round baseball that features the year while '71s show the MLB logo (which was still pretty new at the time).

Side thought: you don't hear a lot about the 1957 and 1958 World Series compared with others from the '50s. Both of them went seven games, I assume they were pretty exciting.

 

Final card (if that's all there was). This looked familiar to me although I've never seen these cards in person.

They are oversized (4x6) and from the T.S. O'Connell & Son Ink series that lasted from 1983 to I think around 1989 or so. O'Connell put out approximately 30-40 cards, drawn himself, each year. The Robinson card is from the 1986 series.

There's an interesting conversation with O'Connell on the James Beckett podcast. O'Connell was an editor at Sports Collectors Digest, worked for Krause Publications (his boss was Bob Lemke) and prior was the PR director for the Empire State Games in New York State, which I didn't know (I covered the ESG events in the 1990s).

I'll probably put this card with some of my other oversized cards from around the same time period, the Laughlin stuff, etc.

And that'll be that. I'll assume that's all that was sent. But if Jeff hops on here and says he also sent a '52 Topps Jackie Robinson, I may have to walk a street over for a visit.