Saturday, January 13, 2018

Young Canada's Rarest

Well buccos, I managed to end 2017 on a bang with the purchase of a 1971 O-Pee-Chee Bazooka CFL card off the ol' 'bay. I mentioned it previously here but it's a set that very few people know exist.

Much like the 1971 Bazooka Baseball and Football package design sets that were issued in the States (not to mention the mysterious but reasonably plentiful--and larger in number--Baseball proof set), O-Pee-Chee issued Hockey and Canadian Football League sets in Canada.  Unlike their US counterparts, these mirrored the designs of the regular issue sets from each sport that year, just miniaturized and blank backed.

If cut correctly, the Bazooka's should measure 1 7/8 x 2 3/4".  However, things being what they are, a proper cut is not something that can be counted upon here:



To compare, here is my example next to a standard sized (2 1/2" x 3 1/2") CFL card from that year: 


I thought the Alouettes name had turned from green to blue but it's Fairholm that is the anomaly. Two other cards from the set have been seen by me, at least in scanned form.  This one is in private hands now and is easily the best of the three:


A third has tape on the end, typical for the end card of a Bazooka panel and is still out there for purchase I believe:


The cuts are a little close on the vertical edges but these three would be found together on panel #3.  The thing is, only three other subjects are checklisted, in the only place I have ever seen mention of these cards, namely Andy Malycky's Collecting Canadian Football, Vol. 1.  In fact, the three cards shown above are the same ones used to illustrate the set in Andy's guide. The other three checklisted are, from what would be panel #8:

# 22 Dick Weslowski (Hamilton)
# 23 Silas McKinnie (Saskatchewan)
# 24 John Lagrone (Edmonton)

There's not much else known about these.  Not the whereabouts of the other 18 cards, pictures of the three players on panel #8 above, nor a box, nor any idea how they were distributed or why they are so rare. It's possible they were a test issue but that's not certain at all. All I know is, there are six possible cards known and I have one of them.


1 comment:

Rosenort said...

Very cool, I had no idea these existed.