1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Paul Markle #108 Base Set Winnipeg Blue Bombers CFL

Description

1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Paul Markle #108 Base Set Winnipeg Blue Bombers CFL Nicknames were currency in the trading card culture of the early seventies, and the gentleman leaning into frame on this 1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Paul Markle #108 Base Set Winnipeg Blue Bombers CFL card carried one of the best of them, because Paul Markle was known across two provinces as Sparkle. The front presents him in the purple Winnipeg jersey with gold striping and his jersey number filling the chest, inside a bright yellow border topped by the bold black BLUE BOMBERS band, and his name appears in the orange lettering that distinguishes the tight end card in this team block. The reverse is the classic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, printed in blue and green ink on grey cardboard stock, with his career story told in both French and English, which identifies it plainly as a Canadian bilingual back and not a puzzle back. That back describes a six foot two, 218 pound non import out of Waterloo Lutheran, notes that he was drafted by the Argonauts in 1968 in the Canadian College Draft, and explains that Sparkle was starting his fifth season of professional football having played three of those seasons in Toronto, with a playful cartoon delivering the nickname in both languages. Waterloo Lutheran is known today as Wilfrid Laurier University, and the path that carried Markle from a small Ontario campus to a Grey Cup era professional career is a perfect illustration of how Canadian football of the early seventies developed its own talent at home. Markle was also one of the players O-Pee-Chee chose for its companion 1972 CFL Trio Stickers, an honour reserved for names the company believed would sell, and that recognition places him in the small group of Blue Bombers who appeared on more than one piece of O-Pee-Chee collectible that year. The parent set itself, 132 cards with 13 players from each CFL club, 14 Pro Action cards and a checklist numbered 132, was the final O-Pee-Chee CFL football issue, pulling its visual cues from the 1972 Topps NFL design while keeping the bilingual backs that made Canadian cards instantly identifiable on both sides of the border. the surface is clean and glossy with no creases or wrinkles, the top left corner tip shows only light wear, and there is a small white print fleck at the left border beside the number 8. The orange name bar is crisp and fully registered, centering is approximately 55/45 left to right with a nearly even top and bottom split, and the reverse is clean and well centred with a single tiny dark speck in the lower text block and no writing, staining or paper loss. A conservative grade assessment places this card at the EX-MT 6 level, with the modest top left corner wear and the minor border fleck being the only factors that separate it from a higher grade, since the corners, edges, image registration and reverse are otherwise strong and the colour is bright and original. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6