Until now.
At the show this month, one of the tables had a big box of cards listed at 25 cents per.There must have been a few thousand cards inside -- including a whole bunch of vintage. The dealer agreed to do 20 cents per card for at least 100, so there went my afternoon! This card, from 1967-68 Topps, was the oldest I found. There's an ugly crease running through the middle, among other, smaller flaws. But we're talking about a card that's nearly 50 years old! It immediately becomes the oldest hockey card in my collection.
Here's a look at the back. I hadn't ever heard of Gary Jarrett. Turns out, he played 341 games in the NHL, mostly with the Oakland Seals but also the Toronto Maple Leafs, He played another 298 in the WHA, too.
Next up is a solitary card from 1970-71 Topps. Like the Jarrett, it's another well-loved piece of cardboard. But again, who cares? It's the second oldest card in my collection.
Apparently, Stapleton's nickname was "Whitey." Gonna guess that he wouldn't have that nickname if he was still playing today.
There weren't cards from 1971-72, which is probably my favorite vintage set. But I did find seven cards from the following year. None of them were superstars, but a few had All-Star seasons.
Here's where things really started to get good. From the box I pulled about 40 cards from 1973-74 Topps, most of which were were in fantastic shape. There were some fairly big names, too. My favorite was this one of Canadian legend Paul Henderson.
Here's a look at the backs of these. It's yet another great design, although I'm mostly showing this one because the cartoon is about Henderson's winning goal in the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the former Soviet Union. It's arguably the most famous moment in Canadian sports history.
Another couple of players I recognize. Hadfield is a Rangers icon. Pit Martin was a four-time All-Star (and he had one of my favorite hockey names of all-time!).
As is the case with a lot of cards from this era, most of the cards I found from this set showed players being photographed in poses. But there were a few action shots in the pile I picked up. It's amazing to see how dark NHL arenas were back in the day (or are we seeing how primitive cameras were back in the day?).
I won't show all of the cards I found, but here are two more I liked. I never knew much about 73-74 Topps/O-Pee-Chee, but I'm really digging these. The use of bright, solid colors for the borders and background is quite distinctive. If it were a shirt and tie combo, you might say they were power-clashing...I may have to try tracking down more of these cards, especially since I'm now almost a quarter of the way to the set.
Just two more 73-74 cards, both from the playoff recap subsets that used to be a regular feature of Topps/OPC hockey cards. I'm not certain, but I believe that's Hall of Famer Phil Esposito peeking out of the background in the Rangers-Bruins card.
There were quite a few cards from 1974-75 Topps in the box -- far more than I could take home without completely busting my budget, given everything else I was buying. I settled for taking home a trio of cards of players whose names I recognized...
...Plus five playoff-recap cards...
...Plus two awards cards. These 74-75 awards cards are some of my favorite from the entire 1970's. I believe all of the others look like the Clarence Campbell card (which I think looks better, personally). The Stanley Cup card is a design anomaly.
I'm going to stop here. But there's still a bunch more to show in a future post, including some Hall of Famers and a big stack from 1979-80 Topps, which is probably the most famous hockey card set of all time.
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