1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Ed Shack #186 In Action Pittsburgh Penguins

Description

1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Ed Shack #186 In Action Pittsburgh Penguins Few players ever turned a hockey rink into a variety stage quite like Eddie Shack, and this 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Ed Shack #186 In Action Pittsburgh Penguins card captures The Entertainer in the powder blue of the Penguins during a battle with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee design is one of the most endearing of the entire vintage era, with the matchup caption running up the left border, the bold NHL ACTION banner across the bottom and the starburst in the corner calling out Pittsburgh R. Wing. Shack patrolled NHL ice for 1,047 games over 17 seasons and became a genuine Canadian folk hero, never more loudly than in Toronto, where the Maple Leaf Gardens crowd chanted We want Shack and a 1966 novelty single called Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack climbed to number one on the Canadian pop charts and lingered there for months. A native of Sudbury, Ontario, he was a four-time Stanley Cup champion with the Maple Leafs dynasty of the 1960s before his travels took him through Boston, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Buffalo. The card back distills his polarizing charm perfectly, noting that his aggressive style made him a favourite on his home rink and often disliked on opposing rinks, which is exactly the kind of copy that made these Canadian bios so much fun to read. The reverse is the standard Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back with the bio printed in both English and French and the O-Pee-Chee copyright line, not a puzzle back, exactly as issued north of the border against the shorter English-only Topps release. Within the 340-card set the In Action cards were sprinkled through the base checklist, and this one is among the most personality-packed singles in the entire run. all four corners show only light tip wear with a tiny nick at the upper right tip and faint whitening at the lower right tip, the top edge carries minor surface chipping in small white flecks while the other three edges remain largely clean and smooth, and centering sits comfortably at approximately 55/45 left to right and 50/50 top to bottom across the gold borders. There are no creases, wrinkles or indentations on either face and the surface shows only the faintest print specks of the era. With bold registration and no structural flaws, a conservative raw grade estimate of EX-MT 6 is warranted here, since the light tip touches and tiny edge chips hold it just under the near mint tier in our judgment. An honest, display-ready copy of a beloved character card. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6