1970 O-Pee-Chee Tom Nettles #58 Edmonton Eskimos CFL Football Card VG-EX 4

Description

1970 O-Pee-Chee Tom Nettles #58 Edmonton Eskimos CFL Football Card VG-EX 4 Don Coryell's high flying San Diego State Aztecs were one of college football's great stories of the late sixties, and the 1970 O-Pee-Chee Tom Nettles #58 brings an Aztec speedster to vintage Canadian cardboard, pictured mid leap in his white and gold Edmonton Eskimos uniform as he hauls in a pass in front of the Clarke Stadium grandstand. The reverse biography explains the remarkable path that brought him north, noting it was his second year with the Eskimos after the seventh round draft choice of Kansas City in 1969 joined Edmonton mid season and impressed everyone as a sure handed receiver. There is genuine crossover appeal in that story, because the Chiefs franchise that spent a draft pick on Nettles would win Super Bowl IV that very season, meaning this card connects CFL collecting with the golden age of the AFL and NFL, a rare talking point for a vintage football card from this set. The bilingual back lists him at five foot eleven and 175 pounds out of San Diego State, and the charming green cartoon panel notes that Tom is a great golfer, one of those small human touches that make the 1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL issue so beloved by collectors more than half a century later. The back is the classic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, black with English and French text side by side and the PRINTED IN CANADA imprint, and it is a bilingual text back, not a puzzle back. Receiver cards from the 176 card 1970 set are notoriously popular because the action photography stands apart from the posed portraits that dominate the issue, and this Nettles is one of the finest examples of that dynamic look. the front shows softened corners with the top left carrying the most rounding and whitening, a small chip along the bottom border, a tiny white print fleck in the lower portion of the photo, centering that sits approximately 60/40 toward the left edge, bright gloss and strong color across the image with no creases or wrinkles, and a black bilingual back that displays scattered brown age spotting along the borders with the English and French biography text and cartoon panel still completely legible. Graded conservatively at VG-EX 4 because the corner softening, the small bottom edge chip and the noticeable age staining on the reverse combine to hold the technical grade down even though the front presentation remains attractive, this 1970 O-Pee-Chee Tom Nettles #58 is an honest, well described copy for the CFL set builder or the San Diego State Aztecs collector hunting an obscure college football connection. Grade Estimate: VG-EX 4