I mentioned in my New Year's post that the 88-89 O-Pee-Chee set was one of the 3 sets that I wanted to finish in the first quarter of 2017. I even had it precisely down to picking up the one card I needed, the Brett Hull RC you see above, at the monthly card show.
I did just that on the weekend, and now you're about to see the finished product. All 264 cards from the "push pin" set, 1988-89 OPC, here for your viewing pleasure.
My favorite card? Mike Krushelnyski, page 25, dead center. The airbrush job that OPC did makes him look like he's glowing in the dark.
Worst spelling mistake? Page 26. Mario Marois, bottom center. OPC spelled his last name "Marios" on the front and back. Homage to Mr. Lemieux maybe?
I'd forgotten that:
- Charlie Simmer was a Penguin
- Mark Hunter was traded to the Blues and became a 40 goal scorer there before moving to Calgary.
- The Calgary Flames were as great a team as they were on their run to the '89 Stanley Cup. There were also Flames players that didn't even have a card in this set (Gary Roberts, Brad McCrimmon and Jiri Hrdina to mention 3)
- Darren Pang even has a card in this set!
Anyone have a spare Mike Schmidt RC floating around?
Thanks for reading, Robert
These are some great looking cards. I follow hockey, though I never really collected hockey cards. I dabbled with one player in the early 2000s. Best individual card for me is the Brendan Shanahan card, also love the Canucks cards with the skate uniforms.
ReplyDeleteSimmer is from my hometown.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize the OPC set was that small. I would have thought it was over 300 cards.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on completing the set!
ReplyDeleteLike a lot of the "junk wax" era stuff, when I first got into hockey cards, I dismissed most of those sets and cheesy and cheap. But the more I look at them the more I like them.
ReplyDeleteI used to watch any random hockey game and didn't have a favorite team besides Boston - only because of their cool black unis. Guess that's why I recognize names like Bengt G, Gaetan D, and Esa T (have no idea if they were stars or not). It's also fun to see present day veteran coaches and announcers as players back then.
Just finishing 1990-91 OPC myself from two cheap boxes...
Hmm It appears that this Hull rookie card may be a counterfeit ... The real Hull rookies have a yellow dot in the push pin, on the left side found around the middle. All OPC Hull rookie cards have it. I enlarged the photo of the card you posted and could not see it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that info, I'll have to do some research and see what I come up with...
DeleteGreat set. I picked up a collection at the flea market last month and it had a few Topps and OPC cards from this set. I really like the cards featuring action shots like the Tambellini and Claude Lemieux.
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