1971 O-Pee-Chee Partridge Family #1 David Cassidy as “Keith” Key Card Puzzle Back Yellow Series 1

Description

1971 O-Pee-Chee Partridge Family #1 David Cassidy as "Keith" Key Card Puzzle Back Yellow Series 1 This is the card every Partridge Family set builder wants first: card #1, the official checklist-opener of the entire 55-card yellow Series 1 release, featuring a striking close-up portrait of David Cassidy as Keith Partridge, guitar in hand, mid-song with that unmistakable feathered 1970s hairstyle that launched a thousand teen magazine covers. Cassidy was arguably the biggest teen idol of the early 1970s, and his role as the heartthrob older brother in a fictional pop band translated into a very real music career, complete with sold-out arena tours and a fan following that rivaled the Beatlemania of the previous decade. Making this portrait card the lead card of the set was a smart call, and it has kept card #1 the most consistently sought-after single from the entire yellow-border run ever since. The reverse carries part of "Puzzle No. 2," a purely image-based jigsaw segment with no accompanying text, one of the cleaner puzzle pieces in the set. This example is the O-Pee-Chee issue, marked "Ptd. in Canada" on the back. Since OPC's Canadian print run was considerably smaller than the U. S. run, this key card is meaningfully scarcer in its O-Pee-Chee form, most surviving copies of card #1 in the marketplace are the standard U. S. issue. the portrait itself is beautifully centered within the black photo frame, with excellent color reproduction in Cassidy's hair and the warm interior backdrop. Corner examination reveals mild rounding and whitening at both the top-left and top-right corners, typical honest wear for a key card that was handled more than most in any given pack or box due to its front-of-set popularity. The bottom corners remain notably sharper by comparison. Centering shows a very slight lean, with the right-hand yellow border running marginally narrower than the left, though nothing severe enough to crop the black inner frame. The surface is free of creases or writing, and the puzzle-piece reverse is clean and undamaged. Given the top-corner wear balanced against strong centering and a clean surface, a conservative raw grade of EX-MT 6 is fair for this key card. A must-have anchor piece for any serious Partridge Family or David Cassidy collection. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6