1973-74 O-Pee-Chee New York Rangers #NNO Team Logo Pushout Insert 1st Series

Description

1973-74 O-Pee-Chee New York Rangers #NNO Team Logo Pushout Insert 1st Series There are emblems that carry the very sound of a place with them, and for half a century of North American sport few have echoed louder than the diagonal swagger of the New York Rangers shield. This 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee New York Rangers #NNO Team Logo Pushout Insert 1st Series decal captures that shield in its classic mid-century form, a blue banner crest with the club name arched across the top and RANGERS slashed diagonally through a red field, exactly as it appeared on the sweaters that skated out of Madison Square Garden on Saturday nights. O-Pee-Chee of London, Ontario produced these adhesive-backed pushouts as inserts in first series wax packs of its 1973-74 hockey issue, and the Canadian printing is unmistakable because the punch-out instructions appear on the front in both English and French, reading PUNCH OUT, WET BACK AND PRESS ONTO ANY SURFACE FOR TEN SECONDS above the logo and ENLEVEZ EN POUSSANT, HUMECTEZ LE DOS ET COLLEZ SUR N'IMPORTE QUELLE SURFACE EN PRESSANT PENDANT DIX SECONDS below it. Most children of the era obeyed those instructions without a second thought, which is why intact survivors with the gum side untouched are so scarce today, and why a never-used example like this one matters to the collector of vintage hockey inserts. The 1973-74 campaign it advertises was a poignant one on Broadway, with the celebrated GAG line of Rod Gilbert, Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield still skating together for a franchise chasing its first Stanley Cup since 1940, and with the Blueshirts winning fifty games before their season ended against the Broad Street Bullies in the semifinals, a collision between two of the decade's defining clubs. the front presents bold, saturated blue and red ink on clean cream stock with the shield centered slightly high but well within acceptable bounds, the corners show only faint handling softness under close inspection, the edges carry minute whitening at the top left corner tip, and the die-cut shield outline remains complete with no missing tabs. The reverse is the plain unprinted adhesive-backed cardboard typical of the issue, showing light even toning and no staining, and to be explicit for the cataloguer this is the Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual instruction front with a blank gum back, not a puzzle back and not a standard bilingual back design. Because the gloss and color survive beautifully while the corner and edge wear noted above keeps it a step below near mint, our conservative estimate settles at EX 5, an honest raw grade for a five-decade-old pushout that escaped the water glass and the bedroom wall alike. Grade Estimate: EX 5