I did a little study on 1969 OPC High-numbers PSA9 population (#133-#231).

#'s with POP of 30 and more:

#135, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 143, 146, 150, 154, 155, 157, 159, 160,
161, 162, 165, 166, 172, 173, 176, 182, 184, 186, 187, 189, 191, 197,
198, 200, 201, 202, 208, 209, 210, 212, 213, 218, 219, 226, 230, 231.

#'s with POP of 10 or less:

#140, 153, 164, 171, 175, 192, 195, 205, 207, 211, 214, 215, 216, 217,
220, 221, 222, 223, 225, 227, 228, 229.

I assume all the high-number cards came from the same sheet of 132 cards.

Since there are 132 cards on a sheet and there are 98 different high-number cards,
34 cards must then be double printed.
If there are 34 cards appearing twice on a sheet, it leaves 64 cards being printed once per sheet.
We can define the following two groups:

SP group: 64 cards
DP group: 34 cards

From the PSA POP report, I have listed 42 different cards with clearly double print caracteristics and
22 cards that would fit the Short Print definition.

My conclusion would be that the PSA POP report is FAR FROM representing the cards POP coming out of the printed sheets.
If I am wrong, how can we explain such discrepency between the POP report and the source?

I dug up a little further with the All-Star group of cards.
There are 12 All-Star cards from #211 to #222. Unless I am wrong, all these cards appear once on a sheet (SP).

Looking at the PSA9 POP, we have:

#211 POP:1
#212 POP:93
#213 POP:63
#214 POP:5
#215 POP:6
#216 POP:3
#217 POP:1
#218 POP:39
#219 POP:42
#220 POP:1
#221 POP:3
#222 POP:3

Card #212, 213, 218, 219 have POPs 15X greater than the others. They are not double printed, they would have been 15 times more printed. Have they been printed exclusively from the same sheet as the others? If it's the case how can we explain such POP variances?

Thanks in advance for helping me understanding.

Interesting question, Gilles.
I'm also working on this set. I bought a bunch of raw cards about 10 years ago and I have slowly gotten a lot of them graded. I have had decent luck, with some 8's and 9's in the low #'s, but never any 10's.

I haven't studied the pop. report to this degree, but I have looked over it and there are a few cards that seem very tough. Most of the higher # cards are easy to find, but a few are quite difficult past PSA 8. I'm going to look over what you came up with and make a note of it for future purchases.

Let me know if you find anything else about other cards that don't fit the pop. #'s.

Here are the sheets, now you can see there are some double prints, hopefully this will help you figure this out a little better.

Thank you for posting the sheet, Bobby.

As everyone can see, the left sheet shows the high numbers.

The 12 All-Star players are positionned at the top right and bottom left corners.
These 12 cards appear once per sheet.

Anyone has found an explanation as to why 4 of these cards have PSA9 POP of 39 to 95
while the 8 others have POP of 1 to 6?

Anyone with some statistical calculus background would find highly improbable to pull
these kind of end population results generated from a process generating equal number of cards.

I don't want to jump too fast to conclusion but it seems like some of the 1969 OPC high-number cards
were mass produced but not from this sheet.

List the players associated with those cards and that will break the math down, remember PSA and resubmitials really throw a wrench in the works.

Allow me my persistance, Bobby.

A POP of 1 PSA9 for #211 Glen Hall, #217 Ed Giacomin and #220 Jean Beliveau

VS

a POP of 42 for #219 Ted Harris, 63 for #213 Tim Horton and 93 for #212 Bobby Orr

would be explained by resubmitals at PSA?

I don't think I understand...


BTW, same discrepencies appear within the Trophies group, cards #223 to #230
and the Trophy Winner group, cards #205 to #210

Looking closer at the HIGH POP cards from the All-Star, Trophy Winner and Trophy groups, they are all located at the
bottom left corner of the sheet, while all the LOW POP cards are in the upper right corner.

Remember, all these cards are part of the 64 cards that appear once on the high-number sheet. They should have similar
populations on the PSA registry.

MMMmmhh! Starting to be interesting, huh?

Any other suggestions?

Maybe the vending boxes had a higher count of certain high number cards that were higher in grade than the others?

Usually low pops from the 60's and later have to do with centering. I didn't check but if you look for the low pop cards on the sheet, I'm betting they are at the end of the rows.

I spent a few hours yesterday doing the work of locating the high pop cards and
the low pop cards on the printing sheet. Here is how it works:

Starting with the high-number sheet, I have separated with a black line, the single
printed zones from the double printed zone. Take note row 4 and 7 are the same,
as 5 and 8 and 6 and 9. I then placed red and blue square on low and high Pop cards.
The double printed cards have been identified as low pop or high pop only once (row 4 to 6).

I have defined Low Pop cards as cards with 10 or less PSA9 + PSA10 (RED)
I have defined High Pop cards as cards with 30 or more PSA9 + PSA10. (BLUE)

Hope that visualizing the distribution of low and high POP cards on the sheet will help resolving this mystery.

Gilles,

I ran through many high number cases from New Jersey years ago. I would say
that I ran through about 250+ of each card. Imagine holding 250 Bobby Orr's,
Gordie Howe's (all with no #), none of the numbered Howe's came from vending,
just wax.

Anyway, from the cases I searched, the sheets are accurate. The POP reports are skewed only because the centering on certain cards are very tough. I had 1,000's of 9's from these cases, and it wasn't worth sending in the 8's because of centering. Dick Cherry, some of the trophy cards, the Beliveau AS, the Mahovlich AS, the Howe AS to name a few were always very off center from the vending.

I do believe that these cards were massed produced from New York. The blade
cut on all these cards were razor sharp. The only thing that dismissed my theory was that the vending cases all had Ontario stamped on them. My theory was that Topps did the cutting because Bellman (the big American card dealer) put in a huge order of these. He was making full sets of 1-132 Topps, and high number OPC's. Bellman never ordered the low number OPC's from 1969 or 1970. He did order the 68's and 73's, along with the 71's, as
did Aarons (ebay), and the 72's.

However, with the 69's, the high numbers are still out there in mass quantity. The guy in Pennsylvania still has the cases. He's about 72 years old now, and the stuff will probably hit the auctions once he passes. His collection is in a trust.

On a side note, the POPs on the low numbers have increased over the years because of the Mastro auctions with all the 69 sheets that were sold. These have been cut up, or those POP numbers would have remained very low over the years

And yes, after looking at your research, I did notice the Terry Harper and Noel Picard also. Those two are very tough to find centered from vending.

For example, I remember gathering 50 of Tim Horton AS from these cases, and maybe 1 or 2 Noel Picards. That Noel Picard is one tough card to find centered, and just wasn't worth the money because I knew it was coming back an 8.

Another thing I'd like to add is that the Pat Quinn and Rogie Vachon come with great centering from side to side, but top to bottom can be off.
I came across 40 Pat Quinn's to submit. 35 of them had 60/40 centering,
and 5 had 50/50 centering. If you ever look for a Quinn, try to find the
50/50's. They are very noticeable, and very rare.

Looking at the picture of the high number sheet, it just doesn't make sense looking at those last three rows on the right. Many of those cards are o/c in the vending cases, yet some of those were fine. How did they cut those cards and get such a discrepency ? And looking at Quinn and Vachon on top of each other, how did they get centering that is unique to all the other cards in those 3 rows ? I don't think I ever came across an uncentered Bower.

long time, no hear (since about 2004)....glad to hear you are still around and active in the hobby still

Dan Basso
Vancouver

Thank you Marc for you input.

There is a lot of hockey cards history in your answers. It certainly add some dimension to collecting!

Since I'm only looking from the angle of statistics, I'm left with a few interrogations.

If we know that uncut sheets have been cut recently with the latest laser cut technology,
I assume the end result would have left similar growth of PSA9 POP across all the cards
of the sheet.

Also, we can reasonnably assume that if a card was misscut during its original production,
some of the cards immediately around it would also be misscut.

I don't know what to do with these isolated low POP cards:

#192 (Column2, Row3)
#153 (Column5, Row3)
#195 (Column7, Row11)
#140 (Column11, Row4 and Row7) Double print

On the other end, the low POP of cards of the last column could be explained by the fact they are
located in the last column. Harper and Picard are on that column. For instance cards from that
column could have wider/narrower right border preventing most of them from having the high grade.


As for the biggest unanswered mystery, what happened to the cards from the first three rows, last five columns?

With an average PSA9 POP of 3 per card, while the cards around the area have PSA9 POP of 25, it's almost like
if these cards were cut on a different machine.

It will be interesting to see how the future will unfold.

My only guess to your question about "what happened to the last five rows, and three columns" is this.......

O-PEE-CHEE did not cut the full sheet in one big cut. They cut it in threes before cutting it more. The evidence is there to support it.

Look at the top three row of cards. These cards are always o/c in vending.
Look at the next three rows. These cards are cut the same in vending.
Look at the next three rows. These cards have similarities in vending.

And with this theory we can assume that the Vachon/Pat Quinn rows always got cut the same with the side to side being cut 50/50 and the top to bottom having it's o/c cut. I see other cards in the Vachon/Quinn column that have the same issues.

So O-PEE-CHEE had do to cut the sheet from side to side first before it cut top to bottom. However, I still do not believe that O-PEE-CHEE Canada cut the 1969 high number vending cases. With the amount of product that Bellman ordered, I believe O-PEE-CHEE Canada allowed Topps to print and cut the cards using it's label to ship to Bellman. This probably saved on shipping and other costs. Topps is well known for these three column sheets
come from it's vaults. You'll see these sheets in baseball, football, and basketball from time to time.

Hi Dan,

Actually more active in raising my three boys (ages 10,6,and 2).
I spend two nights a week coaching basketball, and Saturday and Sunday
at the ice hockey rink. Having the time of my life right now, as I have a six year old who really enjoys hockey. Dad isn't pushing him at all. Every day he asks me if we can go skate, so it's all him.

If OPC was cutting the sheet horizontally in 4 sections of 3 rows AND the next operation
was to cut these 4 sections independently vertically, it could explain the present results
on high grade POP. The machine cutting the upper section was simply not calibrated properly
during the whole period. Clever, Marc!

On the following sheet, I have divided by 2 the population of double prints.
This would enhanced the visual of cards low/high pop distributions from the high number sheet.
(little corr.: #165 Vachon with POP of 46 has a blue square)

For instance, #168 Gilles Tremblay (POP 13) DP, would have a red square because
13/2 smaller than 10.

With the risk of repeating myself, it is difficult to explain why single printed cards
in the bottom left area are High POP while some double printed cards in the middle area of
the sheet are randomly Low POP. It will be interesting to see if time will reduce these
distribution anomalies. If these anomalies persist, maybe, all these cards on the market today
were not originally printed in equal number. I would doubt it but could it be a possibility?

The answer to your question is "demand" !

Nobody wanted Nick Libett except us five, and maybe a few Detroit collectors.

But everyone wanted Tim Horton AS, Bobby Orr, The Stanley Cup, Serge Savard Conn Smythe, and all those other desirable cards from the first five or six rows. All cards in those five or six first rows starting from the left of the sheet were absolutely beautiful in the vending case. I could have graded 100 Terry Sawchuk PSA 9's if the demand was there. I think I graded about 35 of them. I could have graded 100 Tim Horton AS cards. I think I submitted about 50.

May I add that since the mastro sheets got cut, the most desirable collecting aspect of the 1969 series is the 4 in 1 quad stickers. These were only inserted into 1969 high series wax packs. There was no vending for these. These are the real "chase" cards from that year.
I would also like to add that for some reason there was vending for 1968
o-pee-chee puck stickers. I ran across a case of them from this guy. The problem was that he lived at the New Jersey shore, and MANY of these puck stickers stuck together over the years because of the glue. If someone
else has a well preserved case of these stickers, then the pops could fly in the years to come.

I also believe that Topps (who I believe cut these sheets for the high series only), cut this sheet in "half" top to bottom. The evidence suggests that they cut it between row 6 and row 7, giving two seperate sheets with
6 from the left, and 5 columns from the right, or the Bobby Hull All Star all the way to the Gordie Howe All Star if looking at the top column.

I would be interested to know the POP reports on 9's for the trophies
from the bottom left corner as opposed to the trophies from the top right
corner.

Good morning Marc,

You may ask and shall receive!

Here are the pop of 9 and 10 combined for the trophies:


Top Right of the sheet:

#223 Art Ross ....... 0
#225 Lady Bing ...... 1
#227 Calder .......... 2
#228 James Norris .. 7
#229 Conn Smythe . 1

Bottom Left of the sheet:

#224 Hart ................ 23
#226 Vezina ............. 53
#230 Prince of Wales . 41
#231 Stanley Cup ...... 41

Since you were one of the few lucky hobbyist to have the opportunity to see what's in these
vending boxes, was there any cards from the top right area of the sheet?

Is it possible only certain cards from the sheet are to be found in vending boxes?
Terry Sawchuk but no Esposito AS, Bobby Orr AS but no Bobby Hull AS?

If the answer is yes, and if all the cards came from the printed sheets, what
were they doing with the other cards?

BTW, I have noticed similar discrepencies in the 73' OPC. Unfortunately, without an image of the 73' OPC uncut sheet,
I can't pull any conclusions on their distribution on the sheet.

Have a nice day!

The guy still has at least 3 cases of 1973 o-pee-chee vending boxes.
The cards are absolutely beautiful. I was too busy with the 65's, 68's, 69's, and 70's to really take a stab at them. It would have taken me a month to go through them and figure out any patterns.


All the high series cards from 1969 o-pee-chee were in these vending boxes. No card was excluded. You may want to contact Luke Brown from Ontario ??? (maybe Dan Basso can clarify if that name is correct, because Luke bought some of the neatest cards that came from the cases. There were four or five cards that didn't print all the way. So Luke has a Stanley Cup card with just the Stanley Cup, but with no lettering. He may have a Pat Quinn photo, but with no stick, or no lettering on the front. These were really fun to find.)

The reason all the cards from the top right weren't sent to PSA by me was because I knew they were coming back 9 O/C. It wasn't worth it at the time.
I had too many others to submit. The reason the Vezina Trophy is higher then the rest is because AJ Vezina said he's buy 25 psa 9's.

These vending cases produced the first Bobby Orr All-Star PSA 10, back in the day when PSA 10's weren't as easy to get. It also produced the first
PSA 10 Stanley Cup card from 1970 o-pee-chee, along with the first two
1973 Bobby Orr psa 9's. Those two Orr's sold for 375.00 back in the day.

Very interesting read guys.

If OPC sheets are like Topps then each of the 132 card sheets are really half sheets from a true 264 master sheet. The arrays can vary and often do, probably to facilitate mixing of cards in the packs. For series of 44,66,88 or 132 cards of standard size there generally are no true short prints. It's those pesky 55 and 77 card series that have SP's (and I consider 110 card series to have overprints). You need to look at both sheets from a series to see if there are short prints. The other thing to remember is that most short prints will occur in multiples of 11, although the inclusion of the next series checklist on a previous series sheet can skew this by 1.

There are exceptions to this but generally that's the way it is.