1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Bill Flett #20 All-Star Light Back Philadelphia Flyers

Description

1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Bill Flett #20 All-Star Light Back Philadelphia Flyers This is the companion piece for variation collectors: the 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Bill Flett #20 All-Star Light Back Philadelphia Flyers card, identical in front design to the standard issue but printed on the lighter tan paper stock rather than the darker grey. O-Pee-Chee ran two different paper stocks through the presses during the 1973-74 production year, and the resulting light and dark back pairs have quietly become a favourite side quest for advanced collectors of this set, particularly within the first series where the grey stock dominates and clean tan examples take real patience to track down. Owning both versions side by side is one of the most satisfying displays in vintage Canadian hockey collecting, and this listing covers the tan copy. The front is the same eye-catching All-Star West design, a yellow field bordered in red with the shield window framing Bill Flett standing tall in the Flyers road sweater above a downed goaltender. Flett's story is one of the best in the set. A genuine former rodeo performer from Alberta, he arrived in the NHL with the expansion Los Angeles Kings in 1967-68, was dealt to Philadelphia, and then exploded for 43 goals and 74 points in only 69 games during the 1972-73 campaign, numbers printed right on the back of this card in the familiar hockey-stick statistics graphic. He is remembered just as much for his appearance as his production, since the card's cartoon panel proudly declares him the first NHL player of the modern era to wear a beard, a look that became shorthand for the swaggering Broad Street Bullies identity. Flett lifted the Stanley Cup with Philadelphia in 1974, giving this card a champion's pedigree to go with its personality. The reverse on this copy is the light tan paper stock, confirming the variation, and it is a genuine Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back with English and French biography text, the French cartoon caption reading "Le premier joueur des temps modernes à porter une barbe dans la L. N. H.," and "PRINTED IN CANADA" printed at the lower right; there are no puzzle backs in the 1973-74 set. Condition on this second copy sits a notch below its grey-stock sibling. The lower left corner shows the clearest wear with visible rounding and white breaking through the red border, and the lower right corner is softly blunted as well, while the top two corners remain reasonably crisp. Edge chipping is light but present along the right border and across the bottom edge, where several small white nicks interrupt the red frame. Centering runs about 55/45 to the right with the top red border slightly narrower than the bottom, roughly 45/55 vertically. Colours remain vibrant with no fading, and the photo window is free of scratching. There are no creases, wrinkles, or bends visible when the card is tilted under light, and the tan reverse is clean with only mild uniform age toning and no writing, stains or tape. Grade Estimate: EX 5