opc ttm

this marks the last week of posts over at oh my o-pee-chee, and there are some decent variations lined up.  go and check out the fun.  speaking of o-pee-chee, i recently worked out a trade with reader trevor, who had come to own a nice stack of cards from north of the border.

we swapped late 70s/early 80s opc for late 70s topps.  oddly, there were no dodgers in the box of cards he sent me, but there were a few expos, as should be expected.

i was disappointed to find that there was no 1977 o-pee-chee card of andre dawson, especially since john scott - one of the players who shares space with the hawk on his 1977 topps rookie card - got a card of his own in the set.  instead, this 1978 card is dawson's first appearance in an o-pee-chee set

i'm not sure what changed between 1977 and 1978 that made o-pee-chee leave the rookie cups on the cards, but i'm glad they did.

i didn't show any checklists on the o-pee-chee blog for the simple reason that i don't consider them to be variations.  sure, most of the sets have different numbering and maybe 'o-pee-chee' shows up instead of 'topps', but the design is the same.  they are just different due to the nature of the set, not through a choice to alter a player's card.  anyway, here's a checklist from the 1978 o-pee-chee set

ron cey and ed ott - two of the shortest names in the game - together on one card.

here's the back of the expos' team checklist from 1978.

the card is horribly miscut, but it shows something that i didn't realize until i put my 1978 o-pee-chee set in a binder.  almost every 9th card is an expo.  72 was a giant (gary alexander), but 108 was joe kerrigan.  kerrigan was in expos gear, but got a team and text variation due to the fact that he was 'now with' baltimore.  the other two anomalies were cards 225 (mike schmidt) and 234 (buddy bell).  it's too bad chris speier wasn't moved to one of those two spots.

here's another back of a 1978 o-pee-chee card.  this one is the home run leaders card

topps had the record breakers at the front of their 1978 set, with the league leaders in the 201-210 range.  o-pee-chee moved the leaders to the front of the set and put the record breakers at the back.  anyway, the back of this card shows the four dodgers who each hit over 30 home runs in 1977, so i like it.  not enough to put it in my garvey binder or anything, but enough to point it out to you.

i've previously shown a few o-pee-chee multi-player rookie cards.  1973, 1974, and 1982 come to mind, but i haven't shown a 1980 card.  much of that has to do with the fact that only the expos and blue jays got these cards in the o-pee-chee sets of the early 80's while all the teams were represented in the topps sets.  so, here are the expos future stars from 1980

tony bernazard is the only one who panned out, i believe.  here's another expos card from 1980 - larry parrish

i'm showing it because of the velour jacket he is wearing.  nice.

there were also some 1981 o-pee-chee cards in the package, like this kirk gibson rookie card

he looks a lot more like a voltigeur than an outfielder.

there was some 1982 o-pee-chee as well.  i had to show this fred lynn 'in action' card

because of the o-pee-chee logo.  also, when i try to say 'in action' in french, it sounds like i am saying 'au jus' - with juice.  but that would be a jose canseco card.  zing!

finally, there were a couple of the completely forgettable 1993 opc premier cards sent along

i don't consider them to be 'real' o-pee-chee cards.

thanks for the trade trevor!  your cards will be sent along shortly!