[canjond]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

An absolutely amazing run Jon !, all five considered significant John W. Carroll rarities. A real treat to see together.

I'm going to derail the thread a bit, I ask for your forgiveness. I believe the chronological order for the LJ packs would be middle pack first, left pack second, right pack last based on several clues outside of the pack fronts. Would be greatly helped if we could find a legible tax stamp cancel on some of these packs but those have yet to be found. Believe all three designs were used for card distribution (1887-1890+), but the 1887 issues (baseball and others) were likely the earliest middle pack, possibly also the left pack.

Jon, do I recall correctly that the left pack is live, was unopened, and contained an N366 card (Language of Flowers) which we know debuted in May 1888 and ran for a couple months. So, the middle pack's use certainly included mid-1888, could have first appeared earlier.

I would greatly appreciate any leads on a copy of the left pack

Thanks for the kind words Joe. And yes, I actually didn’t mean to place them in order of issue (and your research which you shared with me seems spot on). You are correct that the left pack was full/unopened with a N366 (albeit with some condition deterioration over time unfortunately). Still working on it for you - my letters have gone unanswered thus far!