1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL Billy Ray Locklin #18 Defensive End Hamilton Tiger-Cats EX 5

Description

1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL Billy Ray Locklin #18 Defensive End Hamilton Tiger-Cats EX 5 Football careers that bridge two upstart leagues carry a special romance, and Billy Ray Locklin lived one of the best of them. This listing offers a single raw copy of his 1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL card, number 18 in the set, pictured in the bottom-left slot of the nine-card sleeve and showing the imposing number 50 in full Tiger-Cats colours. Locklin built his name at New Mexico State, then kicked off his professional career with the brand new Oakland Raiders of the brand new American Football League in 1960, one of the original Raiders in the league's inaugural season. When the trail led north he became one of the most respected defensive ends in the Canadian game, earning Eastern all-star recognition and, after a brief try-out with Denver noted right on the bilingual back of this card, Billy Ray came back to Canada to patrol his defensive end position with authority, a line of card-back poetry that tells you everything about how the man played. He was part of the Montreal Alouettes' 1970 Grey Cup championship run and then returned to Hamilton, where this 1971 card finds him, anchoring the defensive front for one of the league's proudest franchises. The reverse is classic O-Pee-Chee Canada, English text beside French on the deep black background with PRINTED IN CANADA down the edge, and the lime green cartoon panel delivers the hobby's favourite Locklin fact: Billy's lucky number is 50, matching the huge gold digits on the portrait side. The 1970 OPC CFL design has aged beautifully, its white-framed colour photography and red name lettering giving defenders like Locklin the full hero treatment usually reserved for quarterbacks. Player collectors chasing original AFL names, Ticats alumni completists, and set builders filling the Hamilton run will all want this one. Searching 1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL Billy Ray Locklin #18 Defensive End Hamilton Tiger-Cats EX 5 lands on exactly this card, honestly described and honestly graded. the front shows faint reddish surface marks along the left edge of the photo area visible in the scan, mild wear at the corner tips with light rounding, and centering close to even with a very slight tilt, the portrait otherwise free of creases and rich in colour; applying the page-flip mapping, this card's reverse sits at the bottom-right of the back scan and shows moderate corner wear with a few faint hairline surface marks in the black background, the bilingual text and green cartoon panel remaining clear. This is the Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back version of the card, not a puzzle back. Grade Estimate: EX 5