Historical Hockey and Sports Memorabilia Auction Spring 2023
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/2/2023
Released a year after Wayne Gretzky arrive on the NHL scene and changed the overall landscape of the game, O-Pee-Chee’s 1980-81 hockey card effort is highlighted by Wayne’s second-year card, his five other appearances and the rookie cards of Hall of Famers Mark Messier, Ray Bourque and Mike Gartner. Comprised of 396 total cards, this high-grade set is made up entirely of EX-MT to NM range offerings with some better cards as well while not being spared from O-Pee-Chee’s commonly seen centering issues and rough-cut edges that plaque most sets of the era though there don’t seem to be a large number of heavily off-center specimens throughout with most showing light light touches of wear to their corners. Paced by a freshly graded copy of the aforementioned Gretzky second year card that has earned a high-grade mark of NM-MT 8 after inspection at PSA headquarters. For the rookie cards of Messier, Bourque and Gartner as well as those of Goulet and Langway, all are in the same EX-MT to NM condition scope with only minor-to-moderate centering issues on the cardboard being of note, the heaviest of which plagues the cards of Bourque, Gartner and Goulet while it is largely avoided by Messier and Langway. The three checklists, remaining unmarked, also all remain in the EX-MT to NM condition neighbourhood as do cards 3-Gretzky Record Breaker (off-center left-to-right and bottom-to-top), 87-Gretzky All-Star (light corner wear), 163-Scoring Leaders and 182-Oilers Team Checklist (off-center left-to-right). Also making rookie card appearances, among the total of 70 featured in the set, are the likes of Liut, Vaive, Craig, Propp, Secord, Sevigny, Nilsson, Peeters, Ruff, Foligno, Morrow, Ogrodnick and Marsh just to name a few.
Also included with the complete set is a group of fourty-four (44) extra cards that includes additional copies of the first-year cardboard picturing Mike Gartner (VG – corner wear and pencil mark on reverse along with surface wear) and Michel Goulet (x3 – VG-EX with edge dings and wax residue plus light fold lines, EX to EX-MT with light corner wear and 90-10 centering and EX-MT to NM with 90-10 centering) as well as the first and last checklists, #123 (x2) and #396 (x5) that range from VG-EX up to EX-NM to NM. The grade range for the rest of the extras varies with some lesser examples in the range of VG-EX to EX up to EX-MT to NM like the complete set above.
Lastly, the lot includes a total one hundred (100) 1980-81 OPC wax wrappers and three wax display boxes. All the boxes have been broken down and flattened and show the usual and expected wear and tear at the edges and corners as well as the odd small rip/tear while the wrappers tell much the same story, with creases/fold lines, light wear to the edges and corners, small rips and tears on some and light stains/marks on some as well though it is worth noting that the graphics over box the boxes and wrappers all display well.
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