I Never Got This in 1973. It Looks Like it Has Been Left Outside for 47 Years

 I bought a 1973 Kellogg's Factory set a while back.  It is in really rough shape as you will soon see.  With that in mind, I decided to open it for a bit of fun and research.

I have an uncut sheet of two factory sets which are in card number order as shown below.

Kellogg's used a different printer for these 2-D cards.  It is odd to see the cards on the sheet in number order since that hasn't been the norm with Kellogg's sheets.  I am accustomed to seeing repeating cards on the same sheet as seen below.  Not all of the years repeated the cards in number order like the 1970s sheet shows.  I will need to check on that with other sheets.  

Having only 15 different players on a sheet probably explains why we kept seeing the same group of cards in cereal boxes in our neighborhood back in the 1970s.

My expectations are low for opening this set because this box has destroyed by time, mold and/or some kind of animal.  I am going to look at this set opening to help me with any future damaged packages. 

The back doesn't look so bad.  

 

On the front it is apparent that the edges are ruined.  

Here are the reasons the set was cheap.  Lots of problems with the last picture above.  

Things I wonder about with this box

What order will the sheets be stacked?  

Which sheets will be damaged the most?  Will damage be only on one side?

Will the sheets remain intact?  

Will different sheets be connected?

Are there any creatures still living in this box?

If you skipped the video because I went on too long (nearly six minutes) here is a summary.  

I thought the fronts of the cards looked great.  Lots of nice colors.  This was a bit of a surprise.

The backs were as I thought they might be - damaged.  The Rose card had the its back up against other cards.  What was different about the front of the card that caused it to resist the staining?

Many of the other cards backs were stained as well.  They sets were stored in the packaging as shown.  I haven't gotten any factory sets with the mailing box older than 1978.  It would be great to find some sets that were stored in the sturdy mailer provided by Kellogg's.  

Time to check out other sheets to see how the card order changed over the years.