Mark Messier's Only Rookie Card Was Never Sold in the United States

Mark Messier's only mainstream rookie card was never sold in the United States.

Topps printed 264 cards for 1980-81. O-Pee-Chee printed 396. Messier is number 289, which puts him in the 132 cards that exist in the Canadian set and nowhere else - so an American child opening packs that autumn could not have pulled him, and a collector who wants his rookie card today has to buy a Canadian one.

He is not alone. Rod Langway at 344, Pete Peeters at 279, Brad McCrimmon at 354 and John Ogrodnick at 359 are all above the Topps cut-off. Between them, those 132 cards account for 10,393 of the 35,841 copies PSA has graded from the set - twenty-nine per cent of everything recorded.

The arithmetic of two markets

O-Pee-Chee was based in London, Ontario, and licensed Topps' designs for the Canadian market. The cards look the same because they are the same artwork. What differs is how many of them got printed and who could buy them.

Topps was selling into a country where hockey was a regional sport. O-Pee-Chee was selling into one where it was the sport, so its checklist ran longer and reached deeper into the rosters. That held for more than a decade - every Topps hockey set was smaller than its O-Pee-Chee counterpart until 1991-92.

In 1980-81 the gap was 132 cards. The following year it was wider.

1981-82 is the stranger of the two

For 1981-82 Topps printed 66 cards nationally, then issued cards 67 to 132 twice - once as an East series and once as a West series, distributed by region. A complete Topps set is 198 cards, not 132 as the numbering suggests and not 264 as the year before.

O-Pee-Chee again printed 396 in one run. So in that year nearly two hundred cards exist only in Canada.

And Topps did something else worth noting. Players from the seven Canadian clubs appear only in the national 66. If you played for Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary or Quebec and were not one of the sixty-six biggest names in the league, Topps did not print you at all that season.

An American company selling American packs made a commercial decision about which players would sell. A Canadian company making the same cards for the same league reached a different answer.

What it means for a card today

Three things follow, and they are all practical.

The first is that some players have no American card. Messier at 289 is the clearest case, and it is why that card has 4,674 graded copies against the 366 of the Langway in the same set. There is no cheaper substitute to fall back on.

The second is that where both exist, the O-Pee-Chee is usually scarcer and dearer. Topps printed for the larger market. Ray Bourque's rookie card exists in both, and the Canadian one is the harder of the two to find.

The third is a trap. A listing that says 1981 Topps and gives a number between 67 and 132 is describing two different cards, because East and West share their numbering. A listing that says O-Pee-Chee and gives a number above 264 is describing a card with no Topps equivalent at all.

How to tell them apart

The backs settle it. O-Pee-Chee printed in English and French; Topps printed in English only. If the back is bilingual it is the Canadian card.

There are other tells by year - the 1980-81 Topps cards carry a black scratch-off coating over the player's name that O-Pee-Chee omitted, and O-Pee-Chee's cutting in this period is noticeably rougher - but the language on the back is the one that always works.

It is a small thing to check and it decides which of two markets you are buying in.

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