6% of a 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Set

Last month I purchased 25 cards–roughly 6%–from the 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Hockey set. This brings me up to 177 out of 396 cards.

Of course, when you still require the Wayne Gretzky rookie card for your set, you can have 395 cards and still feel like you are about a thousand cards short.

Nonetheless, I now have the second and third-best cards in this set:
 

#175 – Gordie Howe

#185 – Bobby Hull

I got a few other key cards, including…

#161 – Mike Bossy (Record Breakers)

#100 – Bryan Trottier

#215 – Bernie Federko

#145 – John Tonelli (RC)

#164 – Brad Park (Record Breakers)

#225 – Jean Ratelle

#1 – Goal Leaders (Bossy/Dionne/Lafleur)

Another 218 cards–plus a Gretzky RC–to complete this landmark set. In the meantime, I’ll continue to chip away at it, a few cards here and there.

QUESTION: At what point do you “page” your sets? That is, when do you put a near-complete set into pages? Do you get a certain percentage, like at least half? Or do you wait until you have every single card? Or, do you not use pages at all…?

mm

Author: Sal Barry

Sal Barry is the editor and webmaster of Puck Junk. He is a freelance hockey writer, college professor and terrible hockey player. Follow him on Twitter @puckjunk

10 thoughts on “6% of a 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Set”

  1. Great pickups. A set like this I would certainly page immediately. Personally it depends on the set, if it is a larger set or a set that will take me a while to finish I certainly will page it right away.

    Sets like UD series 1 and 2 etc I usually will leave in a box and never page or page when they are done.

  2. Great set to start. I am still working on the 82-83 OPC set. I will have to check your wanted page to see if I have any of the 79-80 cards you need. No Gretz, though!

    I never page my cards any more. It got to be too insane storing the binders. Boxes are fine for me.

  3. Nice haul. I agree with Dave H, I have limited space so a set has to be something special to be considered binder-worthy. Something like 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee would go into the binder pretty early on, maybe once I hit 1/3 of the set or so…

  4. I'd page it immediately.

    What I have stopped doing for sets in progress is leaving space for cards I don't have. What I found is that when there are too many spaces in the binder, the pages aren't rigid enough and they'll flex under their own weight, causing a slight bend in cards on the bottom row.

    So now I keep them in pages, but when I'm about half-way done, I'll reorganize them to leave the proper gaps. (I don't bother sorting them because I don't want to have to shuffle them about. New cards go at the back.)

    For sets where I've already left holes and I'm not at that magic 50% mark, I just make sure there's not enough room in the binder for the sheets to bend. Cardboard will help. Or store them flat.

  5. Hey Bill,

    I have hundreds of doubles in 82-83OPC, drop me a line if you are interested in making a trade!

    forestrydave at hotmail dot com

  6. Good luck on the set, it'll be fun to follow as you build it.

    As for the pages, I never really cared for them. I keep all my cards in boxes. Sets go into penny sleeves and then 800 ct. boxes, which I keep in card houses (each house stores 12 800 ct. boxes). My PC cards are in top loaders or magnetic holders, all kept in a Monster Box. The only pages I have are for my mini cards since they are a pain to store otherwise. I keep them in enclosed three-ring binders.

  7. Looks to be pretty old thread…thought I would leave a message…I have 330/396 and roughly 200 doubles/triples from 79/80…all the best cards are bindered up, 99% of doubles are still fresh as though they just came out of the pack still!!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *