1972 O-Pee-Chee Jim Foley #21 Montreal Alouettes

Description

1972 O-Pee-Chee Jim Foley #21 Montreal Alouettes Rookie-of-the-year folklore gives this card its narrative pull, and collectors tracking a 1972 O-Pee-Chee Jim Foley #21 Montreal Alouettes single are acquiring the sophomore-season snapshot of an Ottawa native who arrived in Montreal with conference record-setting quarterback acclaim and stayed as a hard-running local favorite. The 1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL series, a 132-card set produced by O-Pee-Chee of London, Ontario, presented each Alouettes player beneath the signature powder-blue team banner, and Foley's portrait shows him in the green jersey with the bold white numeral 9 that fans cheered at Autostade. The horizontal blue-bordered reverse carries the green stats box, the cartoon vignette, and the parallel English and French story panels that define the Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back format of the era. The back text records that Foley was drafted eighth in 1970 after winning acclaim as a record-setting quarterback in conference play, then named the Eastern Football Conference Rookie of the Year in 1971, an honor that makes this 1972 printing the card that cemented his early legacy in Montreal. Converted to running back among a depth chart of CFL legends, Foley embodied the homegrown Canadian storylines that O-Pee-Chee loved to spotlight, and his Ottawa roots made him a natural favorite among Quebec and Ontario supporters alike. For team-block collectors, Foley's card sits in the heart of the Alouettes run of numbers and pairs naturally with the Fairholm, Kuisma, Randall, and Dalla Riva singles from the same sheet, giving set builders a chance to anchor multiple corners of the Montreal block from one consistent raw collection. corners show slight wear at the top right with faint whitening against the blue border, edges exhibit minor chipping along the right side, and centering sits approximately 50/50 left to right but 60/40 top to bottom, leaving the photo a touch high in the frame. The reverse presents light even toning consistent with the tan stock and age, with no creases, wrinkles, stains, or print marks visible in the photos, and the front gloss remains bright. The card is a Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, not a puzzle back, and both language panels read crisply. Weighing the corner touch and vertical centering offset, a conservative raw grade of EX 5 fairly represents this example, with room for EX-MT 6 only if in-hand inspection proves kinder than the scans. Grade Estimate: EX 5