1969-70 O-Pee-Chee Bob Dillabough #150 Oakland Seals EX 5

Description

1969-70 O-Pee-Chee Bob Dillabough #150 Oakland Seals EX 5 The 1969-70 O-Pee-Chee Bob Dillabough #150 Oakland Seals EX 5 card offers a vivid snapshot of one of the NHL’s most colourful expansion era franchises. Dillabough is shown in the Seals’ memorable green, blue and silver uniform, posed with his stick beneath the original Oakland Seals emblem. The bold red SEALS lettering, circular center designation and black skate graphic make this Canadian issue immediately recognizable as part of O-Pee-Chee’s attractive 1969-70 hockey set. Bob Dillabough was a versatile forward whose professional career connected several important chapters of 1960s hockey. After establishing himself in junior and minor professional competition, he reached the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings and subsequently played for the Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh Penguins and Oakland Seals. His movement among established and expansion clubs typified an era when the NHL’s rapid growth created new opportunities for veteran players. The card’s reverse even notes that he had already appeared for four NHL organizations, reinforcing his identity as a well-travelled and dependable center. The Oakland franchise later adopted the California Golden Seals name and developed a lasting cult following because of its striking uniforms, colourful ownership stories and unusual place in Bay Area sports history. That history gives surviving Seals cards an appeal extending well beyond conventional player collecting. This is the Canadian O-Pee-Chee edition, identifiable by its printed-in-Canada statement and bilingual English and French text. The reverse includes Dillabough’s biography, career statistics through 1968-69 and a bilingual cartoon referring to his four NHL clubs. It is a conventional biography and statistics back, not a puzzle back. This example has generally presentable corners for the issue, although each corner shows some degree of softness and the lower corners have visible rounding. Minor edge chipping and roughness appear around the cream border, with the bottom edge showing the most obvious age and handling wear. The front is shifted slightly toward the right, creating a wider left border, but the overall presentation remains reasonably balanced. The image area retains solid colour and contrast, with scattered print flecks, light surface marks and natural vintage toning visible under magnification. No definite heavy crease is apparent in the supplied scans. Fine wrinkles cannot be completely excluded because the card was photographed through a protective sleeve. The blue reverse remains legible and colourful, with moderate corner wear, small edge abrasions and light discoloration around the outer border. A conservative EX 5 estimate reflects the attractive overall eye appeal, readable back and absence of a clearly visible major crease while accounting for corner softness, edge wear and imperfect centering. This is an ungraded raw card, so the estimate should not be interpreted as a guarantee of any third-party grading result. Grade Estimate: EX 5