Hockey 101 Extra: Hockey Cards

I have long been a collector of sports cards.  At times I have had as many as 50,000 cards of various sports.  Now as I am closer to 40 than 14, I have less than that.  One thing that I never had was hockey cards.  That changed this week as one of the newer businesses in Tipton, two doors down from the paper, sells sports cards and things.  There, I was able to get some hockey cards.  A box of them in fact.  I am going to share photos below.  

In 1879 and 1880 various card sized drawings depicting ice hockey in Canada.

An example of Pro Set hockey cards in the early 1990's.  I have lined up the cards in a 'line' left wing Stewart Gavin; two centers, and right wing Ilkka Sinisalo.

Here are examples of hockey cards that I got.  Score at the bottom, Pinnacle on the middle right, Pro Set in the orange in the top-right and Topps the last card on the top left.

Rough Hockey Card Timeline:

1910 - The first hockey cards in North America were issued for the first NHL season by Imperial Tobacco of Canada.  There were 36 cards in the set.

**In the 20’s and 30’s sports cards evolved from being put in tobacco products to being bundled in with candy and gum.

1933 - The World Wide Gum set was released with two different backs one with both French and English and the other only with English.  Also in 1933, the O-Pee-Chee had black and white pictures on the front, but the photos were against a color background that was Red, Blue, Orange and Green.  Backs were in both English and French.

1954 - The Topps Company releases a hockey set.  First hockey set after two years of issuing baseball cards.  Topps took a year off in the 1955-56 season and restarted the following season.  The prize card from that set was a Gordie Howe, a rookie card is worth $15,000.

1990 - Score acquires a NHL license.  Having produced football cards they went with hockey cards.  The Score cards had a better paper for the cards, action photos and improved writing on the back of the cards.  That same year, Upper Deck begins making hockey cards after their success with baseball cards - their first year was 1989.  They were the first company in 10 years to be licensed by all four leagues.