1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Jim Mair #232 Rookie Card New York Islanders

Description

1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Jim Mair #232 Rookie Card New York Islanders Expansion drafts create second chances, and Jim Mair is the perfect example of a player whose career opened up the moment a new franchise needed bodies who could play. The 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Jim Mair #232 Rookie Card New York Islanders captures a steady defenceman in the original Islanders home white, jersey number two visible on the sleeve, framed by the magenta studio backdrop that defines this classic Canadian issue. Born in Schumacher, Ontario in 1946, Mair spent years buried on the depth chart in the Philadelphia organization, where a crowded blue line kept him bouncing between the minors and brief NHL looks. When the Islanders entered the league in 1972, they selected him in the expansion draft and gave him the regular role he had been waiting for, making him one of the original members of a franchise that would win four consecutive Stanley Cups within a decade. That origin story is the real appeal here. Team collectors who build inaugural Islanders rosters need this card, and it sits in the harder high number series of the 341 card O-Pee-Chee set, a run that came out late in the 1972-73 season and is consistently scarcer in higher grades than the low numbers. That season also gave hockey the Summit Series and the launch of the WHA, so the entire issue carries historical weight beyond any single player. This is Mair's true rookie card and his most recognizable cardboard. The reverse is a genuine Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back with cream stock and orange accents, English and French biography paragraphs, a cartoon panel, and an NHL career record grid listing his brief Philadelphia appearances. It is a bilingual statistical back and not a puzzle back, with the Printed In Canada notation at the base. the photos show an exceptionally clean front for a card of this age, with rich colour, no creases, no wrinkles, and no visible surface scratching under the scan, four corners that look sharp with only the faintest softening at the lower right tip, edges that are largely free of chipping aside from a trace of white showing along the top border, and centering that is well balanced left to right with a very slightly wider bottom border. The back is bright with no writing, stains, or paper wear. The conservative estimate is set a notch below the visual impression because raw grading from photographs cannot rule out a light wrinkle or a corner ding that only shows in hand, and pricing to the cautious grade keeps the listing defensible if the buyer submits it later. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6