The Blue Skate Lines

An uncommon printing imperfection that exists on only twenty-five percent of the cards that came from only one sheet in the series

Synonomous with the Gretzky Rookie card, and a long standing point of contention as to whether they add any value to the card. The point being that the darker the lines, the earlier the print, and an opportunity to further deliniate older printed copies from newer. It isn’t tough to rationalize that a player’s first card is more valuable if you can have one of the first of them to be printed.

Many people have commented that the rollers could have been scratching the paper and other things, but it seems to just be blue ink. There are cards in my collection which have a transverse Skate Line (Early print Andre St. Laurent #73 below). The skate lines are visible on portions of the card that are not blue, in many examples, the lines go through the brown skate shape, although can be tough to see.

Early print Andre St. Laurent #73
Both the regular skate lines and an angled line that enters the card from the top left corner on it’s way to intersecting with the regular skate lines on the next card.