Building on a set after a forty-five year hiatus.

The first and last set I started as a kid, and following the twenty packs I purchased in the summer of 1980, the set remained dormant in storage for forty years. They’ve now seen the light and after lots of organizing, I realize that my set has very few high grade cards. I have recently started filling in the gaps with some gorgeous newly graded cards, I figure a complete set of PSA 9’s is appropriate, 10s are far too much money and I have other sets on the go.

In retrospect, it’s clear that my interest was in the cards and not the sport. I did watch hockey, it felt a very adult thing to do on a Friday night when I was eight, eating chips and drinking a big bottle of pop while my parents entertained upstairs, but I wasn’t paying attention to players or teams. I would go to the corner store, buying four packs for five Saturdays in a row, and opening them on the walk home while enjoying the bubblegum. I remember one day when I got home and continued organizing the cards, having pulled more Wayne Gretzky cards than any other player, and thinking “who the heck is this guy?”. There was something about the image of Gretzky and that great rookie statement on the back that compelled me to take care of these ones in particular. That card had a visceral effect and it took another twenty years before I even realized who he was and why the card was so special.

The collection so far. Only PSA 9’s and better. Gretzky gets a break.

At an incredible four, Gretzky was the most plentiful card I received from opening packs when I was a kid.

1979 Bobby Hull O-Pee-Chee #185

“Now with the Jets?”

A response to the NHL / WHA merger on June 22, 1979. The NHL allowed all their clubs to claw back all of the players who had left for the WHA. Exceptions were made for Gordie Howe who stayed with the Whalers and didn’t have to go back to Detroit, and Bobby Hull of the Jets who didn’t have to return to Chicago. Its unclear why Hull got the traded statement and not Howe.

Since the coming-together of the two leagues was seen by the NHL as an expansion and not a merger, no previous stats were recognized (which is why Gretzky’s rookie year is 1979 with the Oilers and not 1978 with the Racers), as these were “new teams” in the league. The Hull card reflects this position, with a degree of vigor that seems like a surprising amount of work to go through to make it look like he was being traded from Chicago, as they went so far as to airbrush the Blackhawks jersey over his Jets jersey from his 1975 O-Pee-Chee WHA portrait, as seen in the examples.

The J.Bob Kelly ‘OPC-only’ uncorrected error card

OPC hits the post on the Kelly card

One of only a handful of uncorrected error cards in the OPC series, both the player and the card do not appear in the Topps series, so this is exclusively an OPC error. The confusion surrounding this card stems from the fact that there were two Bob Kelly’s in the league. One, named “John Robert “Battleship” Kelly” changed his name to J. Bob Kelly for the league to help make it easier. It didn’t. The intended transaction was when J. Bob Kelly was traded to the Oilers from Chicago, but instead they grabbed Bob Kelly from the Flyers. So, correct card, wrong image.