[toppcat]

I am quite skeptical given his card #465 puts him in the fourth series.

From what know of it, roughly one series was issued every 4-5 weeks back then, with series 1 shipping in Feb.

I vividly remember as a young Mets fan Hodges dying and then finally being able to get a card of him a couple of months later (from a five cent vending machine at Coronet in Westbury!). I was never able to get first series cards on Long Island until spring training started so my guesstimate is you would not have seen a Hodges card before mid-May if not mid-June and we all knew his card wasn't out in early April (d.o.d. April 2) back then. If someone can find a 4th series proof sheet or remnant, it might have a date stamp on it that would solve this for sure.

By 1987 cards were being released in December or early January, with series-by-series release long a thing of the past by then.