1972 O-Pee-Chee Larry Fairholm #20 Montreal Alouettes

Description

1972 O-Pee-Chee Larry Fairholm #20 Montreal Alouettes Championship pedigree drives the collectibility of this single, because any collector pursuing a 1972 O-Pee-Chee Larry Fairholm #20 Montreal Alouettes card is buying a piece of the Grey Cup-winning core that put Montreal football on the national map in the 1970s. The 1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL set, printed in London, Ontario by the Canadian counterpart to Topps, gathered 132 cards across nine team blocks, each front led by a team-color banner and each reverse laid out horizontally with a blue border, a green statistical box, a line-art cartoon, and twin English and French text columns. Fairholm's powder-blue banded front shows the defensive halfback in the classic green Alouettes jersey with white and red trim, photographed against the plain studio backdrop that gives the issue its clean, timeless team-photo aesthetic. The back text crowns Fairholm as co-captain of Grey Cup title winners, an excellent punt returner, and a scholarship-camp gridiron star whose intelligence made him as strong in the defensive secondary as he was in the locker room, and Ontario-born Fairholm indeed patrolled the Montreal backfield through the club's celebrated 1970 Grey Cup season and the strong teams that followed. His reputation as a heady, hard-hitting defensive halfback made him a fan favorite at Autostade and later Olympic Stadium, and his leadership voice carried weight on rosters stacked with future CFL hall of famers. For set builders, Fairholm stands as one of the key Alouettes stars of the 1972 printing, a card that collectors of Canadian football history seek early when assembling the team block, and the bilingual reverse confirms the authentically Canadian O-Pee-Chee production rather than any puzzle-back variant. corners remain sharp with only faint wear at the bottom right tip, edges are clean with negligible chipping, and centering measures approximately 55/45 left to right with a slightly top-heavy 60/40 top to bottom placement of the photo within the blue frame. The reverse shows light even toning on the tan paper but no stains, creases, wrinkles, or print marks, and the gloss on the front survives bright and intact under the sleeve. This is a Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, not a puzzle back, with both the English and French panels fully legible. Because the corners and surface are so clean, a conservative raw grade of EX-MT 6 is supportable, though cautious sellers may quote EX 5 to account for the minor centering offset. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6