Wednesday, April 30, 2008

1978 O-Pee-Chee Baseball

1978 O-Pee-Chee Short history – O-Pee-Chee was a candy company founded in 1911 by Canadian brothers. They first tried their hand at trading cards in 1933. From 1965 through 1994 they were a licensee for Topps baseball cards. For many of the years the Topps and O-Pee-Chee cards were very similar. The company was purchased by Nestle in 1996 and Upper Deck started using the name for some of their trading cards in 2006.




Ruppert Jones played from 1976 to 1987.

Sal bando played from 1966 to 1981 and his brother Chris played for the Indians.




Sixto Lezcano played from 1974 – 1985.




Steve Rogers played from 1973 – 1985 for Montreal, and was born in Missouri.



Willie McCovey, a HOF player, played from 1959 to 1980.


Dennis Eckersley, a HOF player, played from 1975 to 1998




Enos Cabell played from 1972 to 1986 and he and six others got in trouble because of the Pittburgh drug trials.




Ivan Dejesus played from 1974 – 1988 for 7 different teams, his son Ivan Jr. plays in the Minors.



Milt May played from 1970 to 1984 and his father, Merrill played for the Phillies.

Milt may (a double in a pack of 10 cards, yikes)







Card condition and layout – The centering is good and the corners are in great shape (for 30 year old cards). Except for the O-Pee-Chee copyright on back and some of the text being in French you could easily mistake this for a Topps card. It was nice that the card back that had contact with the adhesive was not damaged. Also you can’t beat the 15 cent sticker price. On the back of the wrapper it says if you send in 5 wrappers and 65 cents you will receive a pennant of your favorite team. The back of the card also has the “Play Ball” game that a couple of the bloggers have been talking about.

2 comments:

Andy said...

all things considered, that's a damn good pack!

capewood said...

I've never seen 1978 O-Pee-Chee. In later years these OPC cards had an O-Pee-Chee logo on the front and the player information on the back was in English and French. For some reason, I have a scan of a Dwight Evans 1973 O-Pee-Chee rookie card. It pictures Alonza Bumbry, Dwight Evans and Charlie Spikes. They are named 1973 Rookie Outfielders or in French Voltiguers debutants en 1973. Somehow picturing baseball players as debutants makes me laugh.