It has been an ugly few months. A pandemic is sweeping our nation. The S&P 500 Index has plummeted by 40%. Every so often we get a black swan that catches everyone by surprise.
As I’m writing this, the United States is still in the early innings of what will likely be a devastating and heartbreaking outcome for our country. And while the number of deaths are still fairly small in quantity, the economic impact is already being felt far and wide.
Airlines are shut down, restaurants are closed, hotels and casinos are closed up. Employees are getting laid off in the hopes they can quickly collect unemployment. Schools are closed and people are forced to work from home.
In continuation of our coverage of the most valuable sports cards of all time (see our Baseball, Basketball and Football pieces) in this article we present the Most Valuable Hockey Cards of all time.
You might be suprised that a lot of your favorite hockey players didn’t make this list (such as Ray Bourque, Patrick Roy or Mario Lemieux) but unfortunately many of those late 70’s and early 1980’s hockey cards were produced in sizeable quantities, enough to make some of those high quality rookies mostly affordable.
We focused here on vintage hockey cards worth in excess of $6,000. The end list is 27 cards, and you’ll notice there are players that get a few places on the list–notably Howie Morenz, who has four of the most valuable hockey cards of all time.
Hopefully this will be a bit of a hockey history lesson for collectors as well – we’ve tried to provide a background on each player along with some of the videos which we believed best captured the essence of each player.
The good news is that while our cutoff line was $6,000 (normally in Excellent to NM condition), many of these vintage hockey cards can be found for a lot cheaper if you’re willing to sacrifice on grade a bit.
We try to update these lists every year, but if you see something that should be on the list, let me know via email at chris@allvintagecards.com.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the October 2002 edition of The Vintage and Classic Baseball Collector (VCBC) magazine. We have received approval from the prior owners of VCBC magazine to republish this article in digital format. We are thrilled to be able to re-circulate the fine works of VCBC magazine for today's vintage collectors.
by Dennis C. Purdy, Sr.
The chromolithographic issues of Allen & Ginter are considered by many baseball card collectors to be the most beautiful baseball cards ever produced. Released in 1887 and 1888, the cards were inserted into brands of Allen & Ginter cigarettes.
The N28 (1887) and N29 (1888) sets were inserted into 10-count packs of cigarettes while the N43 set (also released in 1888) was inserted into 20-count cigarette packs. It is not known if any of the three sets was inserted into Allen & Ginter tins, but no advertising or other evidence has yet been documented to suggest that they were.
Some hobby literature (lore) suggests that the tobacco companies inserted the cards as a stiffener to protect their product. While this may have been true with some issues, it was clearly not the case with the Allen & Ginter issues.
They were inserted solely as a means of getting customers hooked on buying their product and remaining loyal to it, and there is evidence to back this up. This evidence comes from an investigation into the chromolithographic process itself.
Jackie Robinson remains one of the most important figures not only in the history of baseball but in the history of human and civil rights.
His baseball cards leave behind a legend of Robinson’s greatness on and off the field.
For me, revisiting Robinson’s past history was at times heartbreaking. Robinson was a victim of the rampant racism that plagued the country at the time.
In this piece, I take a quick look at Robinson’s background and success in baseball, while providing collectors with a guide to Robinson’s most important baseball cards.
I always love when there is a reason beyond the statistics to hold the card of a particular player.
With Robinson, you own cards of both an amazing athlete while also holding onto the legacy of someone that changed the sport of baseball for all that came after him.
