When you are done checking out this card can you pass the syrup?

I have posted a few Bee Hive cards over the years and while I will never ever chase this set, I do love the cards and have gone looking for a couple over the years. I have nearly all the Delvecchio ones except the one very very rare Group 3 one and now I have his former goaltender.

1944-1963 Bee Hive Group 2 Terry Sawchuk (Stick blade cropped)

The card isn't in mint condition but I would consider this very respectable and the backside is clean and adhesive free which is pretty uncommon given the fact many of these cards were glued into albums of some kind.

What is interesting about a set that spanned nearly 20 years is whenever a player got traded, they just slapped a new photo and kept pumping out cards. Terry Sawchuk had three versions come out during this set. One is super rare and is worth 4 figures and they other two have been produced in large enough quantities that their value is rather small compared to the significance of the player and the age of the card. Whether the blade has been cropped or not doesn't matter much to me because in either case I believe this was the photo used to make this card:

The photo of his rookie and the Bee Hive appear to have come from the same original photo which is pretty awesome in my opinion and adds to the cool factor of the Bee Hive card. Some day I hope to track down a nice Sawchuk rookie for my Parkhurst project and have both of these cards in my hand at the same time.


For those who have never seen these before, here is one version of the checklist that you would use to mail away for your Bee Hive "card".




The back side looks like this:

What is neat about the checklist is it would change and players would be added, altered or subtracted from the list as the years would go by. The source I grabbed these photos from claim it's from the 1962 Season. If you look closely, poor Terry's last name is spelled incorrectly as "Sawchuck". Definitely not the last time that's happened.

As far as my future goes with collecting this set I would like to add a few more players and perhaps a checklist before I would say I'm all done. Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull are must haves I believe and I wouldn't mind getting a few other players who were born in Fort William/Port Arthur aka Thunder Bay before I am going to say I'm done with Bee Hives.

Do you have any Bee Hives in your collection? Have you ever had the syrup? It's fantastic on waffles if you haven't tried it yet. Thanks for stopping by!

Another for the PC - Alex Delvecchio Beehive Series 2 Error

A while ago I shared my first beehive pick up ever. Then a couple months later I was able to land my second and third which leaves me with just one ultra rare Delvecchio Beehive missing. 

This is the second of two Delvecchios from the Series 2 release of Beehive photos. This one is a little more rare based on what I can tell, but I have no idea of its value or rarity. I was able to land it for what I felt it was worth and as you can see, it incorrectly lists Alex's name as Bill. Based on the photo, I would say it was taken between 51-55 just based on the appearance of how old Alex looks. However, again I am just guessing here.

1944-64 Beehive Series 2 Alex Delvecchio Error

I really like the look of the photo, just a simple still shot. The photo itself is in amazing shape and a good piece in my collection.

My First Beehive - Alex Delvecchio Group 2 Corr

This recent pick-up is a case of two firsts. The first being my first ever Bee Hive photo and second being another new addition to my Alex PC. This is part of a three group series of photos which started way back in 1934 and eventually ended in 1967. Alex Delvecchio appears twice in the Group 2 series and twice in the Group three series. In terms of collectability, there is a pretty big following out there of these Bee Hive cards and they even have their own online museum. If you are interested in a fun read, go here:   

Anyway, as far as Group 2 goes, Alex appears in two forms, once as Alex Delvecchio and another as "Bill Delvecchio" which is an error. There appears to be far more corrected ones online for sale than the original error ones. I am going to try to land all four as part of my PC since they are all produced during his playing days. Displaying them is something I haven't given much thought about, but I am sure Ultra Pro has something for collectors.

The design is pretty simple. There is a beige background for the series 2 which has a picture glued at the top on the beige paper. Typically you can see a little "staining" where the glue is, in this case it looks like a bit of water damage. In person, this actually looks much better than the scan shows and I was pretty pleased to land it for 5 bucks plus shipping. The backs are blank for those interested to know...

1944-64 Bee Hive Group 2 Alex Delvecchio

The fun thing about these is the fact that the superstars for the most part are very affordable and some of the rare ones are the less talented players and they can sell for thousands. Pentti Lund in a Boston Bruins uniform books for about a $1000 and I have never seen it before online for sale, while his Rangers one can be bought for about $15-20.