76-77 OPC Checklist Upgrade

How often do you walk into a card shop and you see checklists in toploaders? If they are current/modern cards, that might be true of the young guns checklists as they tend to draw some interest from collectors, but in MY OWN experience this doesn't happen often.

To be honest, most checklists especially from the 80's and 90's aren't terribly valuable and they are often a part of a complete set but don't get lots of love. I am like the 50th blogger to probably talk about checklists since Sal had his online poll which determined that they are pretty much appreciated. In the  last year or so, I have come to the realization that they do make good art and are actually cool and fun! Some are also indeed valuable too!

Case one, 79-80 OPC #131

I have one of these and it is unmarked and in amazing condition. I have had it for an eternity and main reason for owning it is.....Wayne's name is on the card! It is the closest thing I have to a Gretzky rookie right now and I think it is pretty cool. I watch many auctions on eBay and I recently saw an unchecked one in VG condition sell for over 20 bucks with shipping!!

Case two, ANY Checklist prior to the mid 70's

If you own a checklist that is from the mid-70's to earlier and it is unchecked, you are sitting on cardboard GOLD! Many kids growning up used them for what they were intended for and that is checking what they have and don't have. So the actual amount of mint, unmolested cardboard checklists is much lower than any other card in the set due to the nature of the card. Some checklists like the ones from 71-72 or 66-67 can book for several hundred dollars.

So there are some value to some checklists, but what I find cool about the vintage checklists are the designs of some of them and how cool they look. Here is one of my personal faves and even though I don't own it yet, I can still appreciate it.

1966-67 Topps Checklist #66

Look at that beauty from both sides. Without a doubt, one of the most unique and cool looking checklists ever made! No room on the front for full names because of the design, Terry Sawchuk gets the T.Sawchuk treatment.

Meanwhile the backsize has plenty of room for Bobby Orr to have his full name and even the checklist is mentioned in a cool fashion. Just love the use of pucks on the front and back!

Now on to checklists I do own...

As most of you know, I have been working on the 76-77 OPC set and I am getting very close to the end. However, a few cards in the set aren't in great shape and that includes the three checklists. The checklists are in nice enough shape, they just happen to be marked either partially or completely. I was hoping to get some solid excellent shape checklists that were unchecked and I did even better than I hoped. My LCS had three, near-mint or better unchecked checklists for sale. I asked the boys to try and do better than the price listed on them which was full BV (and fair really) but they were more than willing to do a buy 2 get one free on those.

Check them out!

Centering on all are great, chipping is very minimal and the corners are all very very sharp. They are pretty much in line with many of the nicer quality cards in my set so I am very happy to have an upgrade in that department. With that being said, I have three old, marked checklists with your name on them Robert so if you need some for your set chance, you can have them free of charge my friend!

76-77 OPC Bobby Orr - A huge step closer

I landed one of the best deals of my life when I managed to assemble over 90% of the 76-77 OPC hockey set for less than I ever thought possible. But, there were some big names missing and which included Bryan Trottier, Marcel Dionne, Guy Lafleur and Bobby Orr. Well I have been chipping away at the set and really I am down to less than 10 cards. Recently I pick up the Dionne at my LCS for 5 bucks and then I found this gem on ebay! 

76-77 OPC Bobby Orr #213

First off, I actually don't own ANY Bobby Orr cards that aren't either leader or all-star/award cards from his playing days. So finding an Orr card was a priority. Secondly, my set is actually in very good shape, the worst conditioned card being my Trottier rookie so I really wanted the Orr to reflect the condition of the majority of the cards. When I began looking for the missing Orr I noticed that it books for 20-50 bucks in the beckett and it sells for that amount typically too. I knew if I was to get a deal it would have to be a test of my patience. Well I must have watched 40 of these sell over the last several months and finally with a max bid of 10 bucks I landed the card pictured above. The card was listed an Nr-Mt OC and I was more than pleased to see the only real flaws are the centering. To be perfectly honest, centering has NEVER really bothered me so this card likely looks better to me than other collectors, but the corners are sharp and the back is beautiful. I will share the full card when I finally finish my set and review it. It turns out that the lockout has even impacted some vintage sales because I bought this card for under 10 bucks shipped! I think this makes me 5 cards shy of the set with two Habs and three commons stand in the way of my completing it!

76-77 OPC Update...Then there were 7

After all my mystery box fun with the 76-77 OPC stuff, I was down to just 10 cards that I didn't have and a few I wanted to upgrade at some point. However, my focus is to get the 10 I need, and then upgrade later in life...or save that for my son to do someday.

Anyway, my LCS have many of the ones I need for this set and I have just been picking away at the slowly and working out deals when I can. I did manage over the last few weeks to nail 3 more off the list. Denis Potvin, Larry Robinson and Bobby Clarke. None of those three book for more than 6 bucks so getting those three for 10 bucks was a pretty good deal. They are all near-mint condition which means they won't need to be upgraded and that leaves just 7 more to go.

I was as happy as Denis buying those three!


However, of the remaining 7, there is an Orr and Dryden in that mix which will drive up my final set price, but I still imagine I will be ahead of the game when it is all done. My LCS does have an Orr as well as the Lafleur I need, but I will let them collect some more dust before I go in and beat them up on a price.... :)

76-77 OPC Mystery Boxes

Well after the success of my 79-80 Topps box, I thought I would take a gamble on two boxes that were labelled 76-77 and 75-76/76-77. The results were absolutely amazing.

First off, there was a nearly full 700 ct box of 76-77 OPC and then the other box was about 1/3 76-77 OPC, there was a pile of 76-77 Topps and then a pile of other random cards including a pile from 75-76 OPC. For those interested, the 75-76 are in pretty rough shape and likely wouldn't be that attractive to many people. There was also a small pile of 90-91 Pro Set which are now in the recycling bin and a few other totally random cards which I will share in a later post. I also found a small pile of 79-80 OPC which I put in a box going to 1967ers.

After combing the random box first, I was able to build a huge chunk of the set. The strange thing was part of this box was actually sorted and in order. Of the first 130 cards in the set I had like 115 of them in numerical order. Included in the random box was this card:

76-77 OPC #67 Bryan Trottier Record Breaker

As you can see, the corners aren't perfect and there is a little wear on the back, but really....not too shabby for the age and was a bit better than what I was expecting since the 79-80 box didn't have this many star cards.

In the end between the two boxes and some rookies I already had in my collection, I was able to get 386 out of 396 cards! That is an amazing 97% of a 36 year old set. The condition of most cards I would say is near mint, but there are some that look like Bryan above and I used my Bryan Trottier rookie I bought a while back which I would say is about Ex condition. So in all, the set would be EX-Mint-ish but more than acceptable for a collector like myself.

The remaining 10 cards are biggies including Orr, Dryden, Lafleur and Clarke, but still can be had for decent prices if I am not rushing to finish and willing to accept Ex condition. If anyone has these cards up for trade, please let me know and maybe we can work something out. Still this was a super fun task, and I am really glad I made the trade and got these two boxes.

Jack Valiquette Rookie

Jack seems to be creeping on me or something. First it began with me finding his card in my 79-80 Topps Mystery box and I read about his great season with the Rockies. Then I found him at the local flea market where I bought his autograph, which it turns out he has some nice penmanship. 

Well yesterday, I went to the LCS to buy the 79/80 OPC mystery box for 1967ers and I was drawn to a pair of boxes with 76/77 OPC. Both boxes appears to be full, not all are 76/77 OPC, but I knew I had my Bryan Trottier rookie, so I figured it would be worth the gamble on the two boxes. The guys wanted 20 a box, and I went home and found something I give up in trade that way the boxes would not cost me anything out of pocket. 

I will share the results in my next post, but here is one card I found in those boxes. *actually a couple copies, but this is pretty typical of the better cards in the box.

76/77 OPC #294 Jack Valiquette Rookie

 Here is the front, many cards in the set seem to have players doing this pose.

Here is the back of Jack's rookie. A decent first season, I believe the Leafs were hoping he would be a solid star, possibly of Sittler calibre. Of course, from my previous post on the topic of Jack, we know that didn't work out so well.