1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL John Reid #22 Offensive Centre Hamilton Tiger-Cats EX 5

Description

1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL John Reid #22 Offensive Centre Hamilton Tiger-Cats EX 5 Every great Grey Cup run has a quiet engine room, and for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the early 1970s that engine room ran straight through number 48, offensive centre John Reid. This listing is for a single raw copy of his 1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL card, number 22 in the set, offered exactly as photographed in the top-left slot of the nine-card sleeve. Reid came north from the University of Tulsa built like a modern tackle, and the card back lists him at six foot four and 280 pounds while telling collectors precisely what coaches loved about him: after playing one year as a back-up man he earned first string status, and he was very reliable on punt snaps. In an era when the long snap was simply one more job for the man in the middle, that kind of dependability kept drives alive and kept the punting unit calm, and Reid handled those duties for a Hamilton club hurtling toward one of the most famous finishes in Canadian football history, the December 1972 Grey Cup at Ivor Wynne Stadium, a 13 to 10 win over Saskatchewan sealed by Ian Sunter on the final play. The 1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL issue remains one of the hobby's most charming Canadian exclusives, printed in Canada with English text beside French on a bold black background, each reverse carrying a lime green cartoon panel. Reid's cartoon shows him at a desk and notes that he sells cars with Tiger-Cats teammate Bob Steiner in Hamilton, a wonderful snapshot of the days when even starting CFL linemen worked showroom floors in the off-season. The front portrait captures Reid in the classic black jersey with gold sleeve stripes and yellow pants, hands on hips under the stadium lights, a linen-textured piece of southern Ontario sporting history. Team collectors building a Ticats run from the dynasty years, type-set chasers of O-Pee-Chee football, and fans of the big men who never made headlines will all find this an honest and affordable example. Collectors typing in 1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL John Reid #22 Offensive Centre Hamilton Tiger-Cats EX 5 will land exactly where they want to be, on a genuine mid-grade copy with plenty of eye appeal left in it. the front corners each show light rounding with small touches of whitening at the tips, the left border carries a faint line of edge whitening, and centering sits at roughly 60/40 left to right while remaining comfortable top to bottom, with the photo surface free of creases, wrinkles or stains and colour that still reads strong; after applying the page-flip mapping to the back scan, this card's reverse shows the bilingual layout with PRINTED IN CANADA along the edge, mild corner wear, a couple of faint surface hairlines in the black background, and a green cartoon panel that stays bright. This is the Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back version of the card, not a puzzle back. Grade Estimate: EX 5