Historical Hockey and Sports Memorabilia Auction Spring 2022
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/1/2022
First wearing his iconic and instantly recognizable Daoust skates with blue Perfecta blade holders in games during the 1980-81 NHL season, Wayne Gretzky wore these utterly rare and desirable Daoust skates with earlier white Perfecta blade holders in some capacity with the Edmonton Oilers during the early-1980s. Originally obtained from the Cornish family, with their association with Gretzky well known, we should note that while we were unable to locate images of The Great One wearing this exact combination of Daoust skates with white Perfecta holders, the image used for this listing shows a Perfecta promo poster with Gretzky wearing these exact models along with a 1979-80 Oilers jersey, and we should further add that a pair of matching Gretzky models currently reside in the vault of the HOF. Daoust 301 models that show considerable use, the blade holder length is approx 11 inches, with the boots roughly the same size (the lacing was likely changed at some point). This matches the sizing of the skates mentioned in the HOF, with an additional pair used by Wayne in 1986-87 to score his 500th Goal that were also worn at Rendez-Vous '87 and sold by Classic matching in size. As mentioned, the skates show heavy use, with rubbing and wear to numerous leather sections of the boots, with cuts covering the toe shells. The blade holders also show some minor discolouration along with cuts and marks, with light rusting to the bolts on the right blade, with each blade showing use with scratches and marks. There is also a small section of the blade holder on the right skate that has broken off, with minor pilling to each tongue. An LOA from Shawn Chaulk will accompany.
Regarding the provenance with the Cornish family, we have sold a number of items that originate from Wayne’s time with the Cornish clan including his pee wee hockey gloves. William (Bill) Cornish was named legal guardian of Wayne Gretzky in June of 1975 as his parents, Walter and Phyllis, had decided Wayne would play his junior hockey in Toronto, and he would be staying with the Cornish family (which he did so for a few years). Bill was the general manager of the Toronto Nationals bantam team and he is the one who came up with the idea of having Gretzky playing in the Jr. B when a legal battle arise for Wayne to play in the MTHL.
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