CARDBOARDFILE
hockey / O-Pee-Chee
396 cards
Five Hall of Fame players have their rookie card in this set, and one of them has it nowhere else.
The 1980-81 O-Pee-Chee set runs to 396 cards. Topps issued its own version that year at 264. O-Pee-Chee printed the larger checklist for the Canadian market, Topps the smaller one for the American, and a hundred and thirty-two players who appear in one do not appear in the other.
Mark Messier is one of them. Topps did not make a Messier card in 1980-81, so the O-Pee-Chee at card 289 is his only mainstream rookie card. There is no American equivalent to buy instead.
The other four are Ray Bourque at 140, Mike Gartner at 195, Michel Goulet at 67 and Rod Langway at 344. Bourque and Gartner do have Topps counterparts; the O-Pee-Chee versions were printed in smaller numbers.
We read the population report on 10 September 2026. Across the whole set PSA has recorded 35,841 base grades and 2,751 of them are PSA 10 - a gem rate of 7.7 per cent, which is high for a set of this age and reflects a clean, hard-stock printing rather than anything about how the cards were kept.
PSA's own header for this set gives 38,001. The difference is 455 half grades and 1,705 qualified copies, which the figures on this site do not include. 35,841 plus 455 plus 1,705 is 38,001 exactly.
The cards this site quotes are base grades throughout, for every set. It keeps a cumulative ladder honest, and it means our totals sit below what you will see on PSA's own pages.
The back of card 289 says Messier shoots right. He was a left-handed shot. The error was never corrected, so there is only one version of the card and PSA titles the entry accordingly - there is no corrected variant to hunt for.
Two more errors are on the fronts. Card 275 is labelled Doug Risebrough and pictures Serge Savard. Card 330 is labelled Gary Bromley and pictures Curt Ridley. All three appear in PSA's checklist as issued rather than as variants, and our parse of the report finds no corrected counterpart for any of them.
A fourth mistake is PSA's own. Card 1 is a Philadelphia Flyers Record Breaker and the checklist spells it Philadelhia. We reproduce the checklist as PSA publishes it, so that is how it reads here.
This is his second-year set, the one after 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee, and he is all over it.
Card 250 is the base card, with 4,781 recorded copies and 39 PSA 10s. He also has a Record Breaker at 3, an All-Star at 87, an Oilers Scoring Leaders card at 182, and he shares the Assist Leaders at 162 and Scoring Leaders at 163 with Marcel Dionne and Guy Lafleur.
So a listing that says 1980 O-Pee-Chee Gretzky is not telling you which card it is.
The 1980 United States Olympic team is scattered through the set in NHL uniforms - Jim Craig at 22, Ken Morrow at 9, Mark Johnson at 69, Steve Christoff at 103, Mike Ramsey at 127, Dave Christian at 176 and Rob McClanahan at 232 among them.
Jim Craig at 152 recorded copies is graded far more often than a backup goaltender's card would be on merit, which is what happens when a card carries something other than a hockey career.
Card 250 is the most graded card in the set at 4,781. Messier at 289 is next at 4,674 - within two per cent of it, which for a rookie against a Gretzky is unusual.
Bourque at 140 has 3,038. Gartner at 195 has 1,017. Langway at 344 has 366 and gems at 8.5 per cent, which is the highest rate of the five rookies by a wide margin and the cheapest way into a Hall of Fame rookie card from this set.
Decide which Gretzky you are buying before you bid. Six cards in this set carry his name and they are not close in price.
Messier at 289 is the one with no substitute. Topps did not print him in 1980-81, so unlike Bourque and Gartner there is no American version to fall back on, and the O-Pee-Chee is his only mainstream rookie.
Centring is the problem on the Messier specifically, and it is why a card with 4,674 recorded copies has only 47 PSA 10s.
Langway at 344 is the value play among the rookies. It gems at 8.5 per cent against the Messier's 1.0 and the Gretzky base card's 0.8, so a PSA 10 is far easier to find and far cheaper to buy.
O-Pee-Chee against Topps matters on price. Topps printed for the American market in larger numbers, so where both exist the O-Pee-Chee is the scarcer card and usually the dearer one. Check which you are being offered - the backs are in English and French on the O-Pee-Chee.
Do not chase a corrected Messier. The shoots-right error was never fixed and no corrected version exists.
Rough edges are normal. O-Pee-Chee's cutting was poor by Topps' standards in this period, and an edge that would be called damage on an American card is often how the Canadian one left the factory.