Size Matters---2007/08 OPC Hockey

Good Thursday to you all, hope that your week is going well.  For most guys, the first two words of this post title bring up other connotations; but in this case, I'm referring to the number of cards in the set, especially in the set I'm going to look at here, 2007/08 O-Pee-Chee hockey.

Released in 6 card packs, this set is the same in size to the 2009 OPC baseball set that I've been putting together, a whopping 600 cards.  Baseball set builders might be saying "600 cards?  that's nothing".  True, but for hockey sets, 600 cards is quite a bit.  The bigger card sets back in the 70's and 80's topped out at 396 cards, so 600 is nothing that seasoned hockey collectors have had to put together.


Boxes of 36 6-card packs are still selling online for $55 each, with the usual chase / relic cards inserted.

Pictured on the left are the standard base cards.  On top is your Marquee Rookies card of Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens, these cards are inserted at a ratio of 1:2, kind of similar to Topps heritage short prints (which this year are inserted 1:3).  Below this is the standard base card, which has a black and gold border.  There are 500 standard base cards, and 100 Marquee Rookies.

The set features some RC's of hockey's great young talent, such as Price, Johnathan Toews,  Bobby Ryan, Patrick Kane, and Nicklas Backstrom.

Some of the inserts include:

• OPC season highlights, inserted 1:14
• Record breakers, inserted 1:40
• Stat Leaders, inserted 1:20
• OPC in action, also inserted 1:20

Below are a couple of more cards that I really like.

The team checklists, such as the San Jose Sharks one featured here, come 1:14 packs.  They have a glossy foil front, and the backs have a clear white card stock, different than the base set which features a gray back.












The Marquee Rookies card featured here is the silver parallel, which are inserted one in every 6 packs.  The scan doesn't do the cards justice, because the background behind Tobias Enstrom here actually has a more bluish shimmer which the scan didn't pick up.















This set will be another nice challenge for me, but that's down the road yet.  In the past I've only bought a blaster box, and a group of 6 packs for $10 at a LCS.  I still have a bunch of other sets yet to complete, and they will be my first priority this weekend (and for the foreseeable future).

Thanks for reading, Robert

(word count for this post:  421.  total for the month, 5810)