1981-82 OPC Bob Bonanza

I want to send a big warm hug to reader Bob P. who in response to my plea for help with the 'missing' '81/82 OPC set, came through BIG time.

He sent me an email out of the blue in early December asking for my address. This from a person I'd never spoken to before, and, to my knowledge, had never even left a comment on my blog before.

I love this hobby and the outstanding people in it.

Let's get to the cards Bob sent over.

A Goals Against Average leader card featuring Vezina winner Richard Sevigny.

I love leader cards, but this one leaves a lot to be desired. Pretty craptastic design. I may have to try and come up with a better design for this one. I'll add it to my list of things to do. Look for it here in 2017.

Richard Sevigny was the man responsible for replacing Ken Dryden. No pressure.

 

 

One of my all time faves, Pierre Larouche.

Pierre was coming off of a disappointing 25 goal season, having potted 50 the year before.

 

Big Bird Larry Robinson.

Larry was 8th on the team that year in scoring with 50 points, 2nd in +/- with +46

 

Ahh.... Guy. How we miss thee. Watching Subban go end to end is great, but it's just not the same.

 

If you're saying to yourself that this is a lot of Montreal cards... well, I'm a Montreal fan. If you want to see Leafs, go elsewhere.

 

Oh all right. But no Leafs.

 

How about Gilbert Perrault?

Gil is coming off his worst season ever with only 59 points in 56 games. Damn those injuries.

 

Now Dave Taylor here is coming off of his best season ever.

47 goals 65 assists and the Republican side of the Triple Crown line. (I have no idea of Mr Taylor's political beliefs. He played right wing. Don't email me. I mean it.)

 

And for the sake of brevity (too late) I'll just package up the rest in one scan.

 

By the way... Mark Napier there? 35 goals, 2nd on the Canadiens in scoring. Mike Rogers, 88 goals in two seasons. Two very under rated players.

 

There you have it.... if any of you are as awesome as Bob and can help me out, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again Bob!

1981-82 OPC #321 Terry Martin

Today`s piece of airbrushed goodness is card #321, Terry Martin.

 

Terry broke in with the Sabres in the 1975/76 season. His rookie card is #318 of the 1977/78 OPC set.
Terry was selected by Quebec from Buffalo in the 1979 expansion draft. After a brief stay he was traded to Toronto with Dave Farrish for Reg Thomas. Terry stayed with the Leafs until 1984 when he was taken in the waiver draft by Edmonton.

So by now you're asking.... if Terry was taken by Quebec in '79, and traded to Toronto shortly after.... why the heck is he in an airbrushed Buffalo sweater in this '81/82 card???

Good question.

Terry's 77/78 RC shows him in a road Buffalo sweater. His '78/79 card has the exact same image as what you see here on his 81/82 card.
He wasn't issued a card for the 79/80 or 80/81 OPC sets.

I'm assuming that because OPC never included him for two years, they didn't have rights to any photos of him, so they had to use an old image when they all of a sudden decided to insert him into their set once more.

Little by little, and then stop.

I mentioned the other day about my lost '81/82 OPC set. I'm determined to finish this one, again. i hit up a couple of dealers at the local show last weekend, but they wanted around $1 a card. Apparently, they weren't in the mood to sell. But that's okay, they own the cards, they can dream about cashing them in on a retirement plan if they want.

 

I went elsewhere. Sportlots to be precise. For .18 cents a card, I picked up 29 cards, plus two unmarked team checklists from 80/81 OPC I needed. I'd say 25 are near mint, with 5-6 ex condition.

That's the good....

 

the not so good was I also picked up 16 cards from the 92/93 Upper Deck set I need. Also at .18 cents per card. These should be .05 cents a card. But what are you going to do? All from the same seller of course. And really, John Cullen's haircut was worth the cost...

For those of you keeping track, there's still no hockey season. But, it is my wife's birthday on Friday. What that means is that I stop buying cards until after Xmas.

No hockey?

No cards?

What am I going to do?

I think that with my slow rebuild of the '81/82 OPC set, I may start blogging a card a day or so as I add them to my set.

What say you?

Missing In Action

 

I may have written about this before. But if I did, it was just casual. Off the cuff. Not a great deal of certainty behind it.

 

That has changed.

 

I've been robbed.

 

Well, that may be a bit harsh. But bottom line, I'm missing some stuff. Who knows what happened.

 

Awhile ago I moved. I rounded up some of my larger friends, and they brought some of theirs. In a morning, I went from one side of the city to the other.

I'm an obsessive mover. When packing, each box gets numbered, and then put into a notebook with an inventory of it's contents. It makes unpacking SO much easier.

My wife misplaced the notebook.

It happens.

But what it did was not give me that absolute certainty of what was unpacked.

 

After all of the essentials found their new homes, it came time for the rest of the stuff. My cards being part of that.

And dang it if I swear a box of it was missing. I'd look for a certain card, or a set, a binder, and it wouldn't be there. Now, like some of you may understand, that isn't news. Sometimes I can't find a card I had 10 minutes ago.

So I didn't think too much of it at the time, although it nagged at me in the back of my mind.

 

Fast forward .....

 

Over the past little bit we've been doing some slight renovations. Painting and the like. What that has forced me to do was consolidate my cards into one room. And I've now gone through all of it. Every box. Every binder. I had no idea I had so much crap. But what I did prove is that some of it is missing.

 

And I'm quite ticked. I have no idea what happened. I do know I had the stuff at my last residence as I scanned quite a lot of it into Zistle.

 

Among the missing... a complete NRMT set of 1981-82 OPC. And a box of early '80's OPC... from '80/81 to '83/84.

 

So that means my consective run of complete OPC sets is now.... well.... non consecutive.

 

I tried putting another set together from another box, but I'm about 116 cards short. And it's now EX condition.

 

Wayne here is one of the poorer condition cards. Love that Titan stick. I had one of those. Good times.

I can't live like this. I must have my consecutive. My precious!

If any of you have any 81/82 OPC, I implore, nay beg you... help a brother out. I've put this set onto my wantlist page, but with the now gaping hole in my set run, I need to finish this.
It's funny how it didn't bother me until I realized it, and now it's all I see.

I'll put my needs here.... but it probably won't be updated except on my actual Wantlist page.

#'s 8, 30, 39, 41, 43, 46, 50, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 69, 81, 83, 84, 85, 105, 107, 108, 110, 112, 114, 117, 118, 120, 121, 126, 127, 128, 137, 143, 149, 150, 152, 153, 157, 158, 160, 161, 163, 164, 168, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 183, 187, 191, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203, 204, 207, 208, 209, 210, 213, 214, 220, 221, 223, 224, 229, 230, 232, 233, 236, 270, 272, 282, 288, 290, 293, 295, 296, 297, 300, 306, 307, 308, 309, 313, 314, 317, 318, 321, 324, 325, 326, 327, 332, 336, 344, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 353, 355, 356, 375, 379, 381, 383, 385, 386, 387, 393,