PROFESSIONAL SPORTS AUTHENTICATORS

THE TRADING CARD

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Like its American cousin, the baseball card, the hockey card had its beginnings in tobacco products. The first full-out sets appeared in 1910–11, produced by Imperial Tobacco. Unlike baseball cards, however, hockey cards were hard to come by before 1910. Baseball stars were often part of multi-sport series like Allen & Ginter’s cards; hockey players, meanwhile, weren’t often subjects in these products. Those early Imperials, three sets in total, were classified as “C” by American Card Catalog author Jefferson Burdick. Modern manufacturers Topps and In The Game would pay tribute to these first series by using their design to showcase modern players. The floodgates opened soon after World War I ended, as more cigarette series were produced. The turn to kid-friendly products followed as companies like Paulin’s Candy entered the growing fray.

The first products that teased hockey’s soon-to-come “modern era” in hockey cards was a short run by O-Pee-Chee in the 1930s, including oversized and undersized (by today’s standards) cards, as well as a unique pop-up product. Companies like Sweet Caporal and World Wide Gum also produced series, while European issues began to pop out of cigarette and confectionary packs the same way they did in North America. With the onset of World War II, however, cards were again shelved, as O-Pee-Chee ceased production.

In 1951, the hockey card market changed forever when confectioner Parkhurst issued its first set. Amid this era, the focus turned from the cards helping to sell gum to gum helping to sell cards. Boys and girls hunted for the series that, at first, still featured art renditions. The company would later be joined by American card king Topps, soon after it had disposed of baseball rival Bowman (ironically, the cards were actually manufactured by O-Pee-Chee). After Topps’s arrival, a split occurred, whereby Parkhurst produced cards of the Canadian teams and Topps took on the U.S. squads. There would be a slight shift a couple years into the structure as Parkhurst would also begin producing cards of the Detroit Red Wings. The split between the two companies lasted through the 1963–64 season, when Parkhurst folded after issuing its perhaps most iconic design, with the pre-maple leaf Canadian flag or American flag in the background of primarily posed shots. With the closure, Topps had the hockey market cornered until the 1968–69 season, when O-Pee-Chee produced its first series under its own brand name. O-Pee-Chee mirrored the Topps sets, except for two differences: O-Pee-Chee had more cards and included French text on the reverse.

The O-Pee-Chee–Topps split continued through the 1970s and 1980s, with the only major difference being that O-Pee-Chee had the market cornered on World Hockey Association (WHA) products. Occasionally, the two companies would experiment — O-Pee-Chee did a “big” series in 1980–81 and produced “mini” series in 1987–88 and 1988–89. Topps, for its part, broke its 1981–82 series into regional series, and later brought its “Tiffany” premium boxed sets into the market. The only true interruption during this time was a two-year layoff for Topps (1982–83 and 1983–84) when they didn’t produce any cards for American fans. But the monopolistic bubble for the O-Pee-Chee–Topps tandem burst for the 1990–91 season when three new manufacturers entered the market and hockey cards went from being bicycle and flip game fodder to stock market desirables.

JON WALDMAN

The rest of hockey card history breaks down as follows:

1990–91

1991–92

1992–93

1993–94

1994–95

1995–96

1996–97

1997–98

1998–99

2000–01

2001–02

2002–03

2003–04

2004–05

2005–06

2006–07

2009–10

2010–11

2012–13

2013–14

Needless to say, it’s been an interesting few years since the boom era, and those days aren’t going to end soon.