Wayne Gretzky is about to set another record.
A mint condition 1979 O-Pee-Chee Gretzky rookie card is expected to become hockey’s first $1-million (U.S.) collectible card, if all goes according to the plan of Heritage Auctions.
“We’re really excited to have the king of hockey cards,” said Chris Ivy, Heritage’s Dallas-based director of sports. “The timing is phenomenal as far as the people that are interested in this type of thing and the current market. And Gretzky is the greatest of all time for his sport.”
When he retired, Gretzky held 61 NHL records — 40 regular-season records, 15 playoff records, and six all-star records. Only two have fallen. And one more was added (when Mario Lemieux’s points-per game average trailed off). Now, here comes another.
“There are only a handful of cards that have passed the $1-million threshold. This will be the first hockey card to do so,” Ivy said.
A Gretzky rookie card is not particularly rare. Fakes and reprints have flooded the market.
“A lot of us will have a Gretzky rookie card in their house and think you’ve got a $1 million card. Odds are you don’t,” said Stephen Laroche, a Belleville-based card collectible author and historian. “There have been counterfeits since the early 1990s. The first thing to look for is a whitish-yellowish spot on his shoulder. Some dust in the (genuine) printing process caused that.”
But there are also plenty of originals. The same consigner who is selling the O-Pee-Chee Gretzky card is also selling the Topps Gretzky rookie card. About a dozen others are up for grabs. It’s the exact same photograph. But mint condition O-Pee-Chees are much harder to come by.
“This whole industry is based on a collector’s desire to collect,” Ivy said. “To accumulate, and have the best of the best. It’s a fun journey for a lot of collectors.”
Collectible cards are “PSA” graded (Professional Sports Authenticator) for perfections and imperfections, like how well it was preserved or how much it has deteriorated. PSA weeds out the fakes. They grade by numbers: 1 (poor) to 10 (gem mint).
“All the 1979 O-Pee-Chee cards that have ever been graded, only two of them have ever earned 10 status, and this is one of those two,” Ivy said. “As compared to a Michael Jordan card, over 330 of those have achieved PSA 10 gem mint status.”
O-Pee-Chee for years was basically the Canadian wing of Topps.
“When O-Pee-Chee was making these cards in 1979, they didn’t lend themselves to be high grade. The paper stock that was used was susceptible to print defects,” Ivy said. “There are centring issues. They way they cut O-Pee-Chee cards — they used wires (instead of blades). So as those wires dulled, you got those jagged edges. And you can see that jagged edge on this card. Collectors like that look of the jagged edge of the O-Pee-Chee cuts. But that didn’t led itself to high-grade examples either, because there could be chipping, issues in the corners.
“Over 90 per cent of the cards that left the O-Pee-Chee factory wouldn’t qualify for mint-grade as they left the factory in 1979. So the fact this card left the factory over 40 years ago, survived all that time and achieved the PSA grade, all those things make it valuable.”
The photograph itself has an interesting back story. It was taken by Steve (Babs) Babineau, currently the staff photographer for the Boston Bruins but back then making a name for himself covering the World Hockey Association.
“I was paid 17 bucks. The price had gone up from $15,” Babineau said. “I’ll sign it for $500.”
The photograph is from a WHA game when the Edmonton Oilers visited the New England Whalers on Nov. 9, 1978, a 7-5 New England victory. That was the second time Gretzky played against Gordie Howe.
The Oilers jersey changed ever so slightly — the crest got a bit smaller — when the NHL absorbed four WHA teams in 1979 and when Topps sent the call for photos, Babineau had the Gretzky shot.
“I was going to the game to get more pictures of Gordie Howe, but the idea was to shoot the kid, Gretzky,” said Babineau. “So I sent in my photographs of Gretzky that I shot in that game, that were colour, action photos. They picked my picture of him playing a WHA game in the Springfield Civic Centre against Gordie Howe.
“He’s skating though the slot area, looking up at the scoreboard. It was a power play, and time was running out.”
The Gretzky card is one of 3,700 items that will be sold over four days (Dec. 10-13) by Heritage. Online bidding is available now at ha.com.
The sports collectibles market appears to not only have withstood the ravishes of the COVID economy, but possibly thrived because of it.
“People were at home, cleaning up, and they rediscovered their card collection,” Laroche said. “It sparked an interest. It’s exploded from there.”
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That’s Ivy’s experience as well.
“In spring, we were preparing for a downturn, a softness in prices,” he said. “We’re not selling anything that’s needed to survive. But we saw the opposite happen. Our May auction, we estimated we’d do about $8 million. It ended up at $10.5 million.
“Part of it was people are stuck at home. Bored. No sports on TV. And they started getting back into their hobbies and a lot of people jumped back into the collecting, jumped back into the market.”
