1971 O-Pee-Chee Tom Cassese #31 BC Lions CFL Football Card

Description

1971 O-Pee-Chee Tom Cassese #31 BC Lions CFL Football Card There is a certain romance to late 1960s and early 1970s Canadian football cards, and this example from the 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL set captures it perfectly. Tom Cassese appears here in his BC Lions uniform as a flanker, the bright red border framing a crisp portrait against a blue backdrop. For collectors who remember the era, or those discovering it for the first time, the 1971 O-Pee-Chee Tom Cassese #31 BC Lions CFL Football Card is an approachable way to own a piece of that classic game. O-Pee-Chee, the Toronto based icon of Canadian sports cards, released this 132 card Canadian Football League set for the 1971 season. The set is organized by club and features fourteen or fifteen players from each of the nine CFL teams of the day, capped off with a full checklist card. The front design, with its bold red border and white framed photograph, looks visually close to the 1971 Topps NFL issue, while the reverse is unmistakably Canadian. Every card carries a bilingual English and French biography beneath the O-Pee-Chee trademark and a printed in Canada line, alongside the set's signature pink cartoon panel. This is the classic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, not a U. S. style puzzle back, and that bilingual design is what makes the issue so prized by Canadian card collectors today. The card back tells Cassese's story in fine print. An American import from C. W. Post College, Cassese arrived in the CFL as a flanker and made an immediate impression during his first season with the Montreal Alouettes in 1969, catching 32 passes for 712 yards. His play earned him a trade to the BC Lions ahead of the 1970 campaign, although a knee injury kept him on the sideline for that entire season. Listed at 6 foot 1 and 195 pounds, he brought the speed and route discipline that Canadian teams prized in their American flankers during an era when imports anchored CFL receiving corps. The Lions themselves made the 1971 Grey Cup final, travelling to Vancouver and falling to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and a flanker of Cassese's profile was part of the receiving group that powered that run. from the listing photos, the card shows light rounding at the upper left and lower right corners, a small pale surface scuff on the upper right portion of the red border, and minor edge wear along the bottom edge, with no visible chipping, no repair, and no writing on either side. The photograph sits with a roughly balanced centering, estimated at 55/45, and the colours remain strong across the border and the portrait. The faint sheen visible in the photos comes from the protective sleeve and is not a surface defect. Factoring in the vintage and the typical wear of a stored card, I have arrived at a conservative VG-EX 4 raw estimate, with the card sitting at the strong end of that range and a candidate for a 5 if examined in person. Searchers for the 1971 O-Pee-Chee Tom Cassese #31 BC Lions CFL Football Card will find this a clean, honest example of a sought after set break from the 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL release. Grade Estimate: VG-EX 4