1971 O-Pee-Chee Jim Young #36 BC Lions CFL Hall of Fame Vintage Football Card

Description

1971 O-Pee-Chee Jim Young #36 BC Lions CFL Hall of Fame Vintage Football Card Own a piece of BC Lions history with this outstanding 1971 O-Pee-Chee CFL card featuring Jim Young, the legendary Dirty Thirty himself. Card number 36 in the beloved 132-card 1971 O-Pee-Chee set captures Young during his prime as a dual-threat running back and flanker for the British Columbia Lions. Young played his college football at Queen's University before spending two seasons south of the border with the NFL's Minnesota Vikings in 1965 and 1966. He returned to Canada in 1967 as part of the only trade in history between a CFL team and an NFL team, a complex multi-player deal that sent Joe Kapp to Minnesota and brought Young to Vancouver. What followed was one of the greatest careers in Lions history. Over 13 seasons from 1967 to 1979, Young amassed 522 receptions for 9,248 yards and 65 touchdowns, leading the team in receiving for nine consecutive seasons. In 1972 he set a club record with 1,362 receiving yards that stood for nearly three decades. Young was named the CFL's Most Outstanding Canadian in both 1970 and 1972, earned CFL All-Star honors in 1972, and was a Western Conference All-Star in 1969 and 1972. The back of this card notes that Young was runner-up to the great Russ Jackson for the Schenley Award as Canada's Outstanding Canadian in 1970, and whimsically suggests he could be a professor at Simon Fraser University. His number 30 jersey is one of only ten retired by the Lions franchise, and he was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1991 and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. Young remains one of the most beloved figures in BC sports history, a hard-nosed competitor whose nickname Dirty Thirty became the title of his biography. This card features the set's signature red border design with the Lions logo and his position listed as Running Back/Flanker. The reverse is an authentic O-Pee-Chee bilingual back with parallel English and French text, the O-Pee-Chee copyright, and Printed in Canada. It is not a puzzle back. The card presents very well with only minor corner softening visible under close inspection, particularly at the upper left and lower right tips. The red borders retain excellent color saturation and gloss with minimal edge wear. Centering is slightly toward the top but well within acceptable tolerances for the issue. The photo image is clean with no surface scratches, print defects, or staining. The reverse is equally clean with no paper loss, pen marks, or creases, and the cartoon and text remain crisp. A conservative raw grade estimate of EX-MT 6 reflects the minimal corner wear and strong overall eye appeal, with the slight centering imperfection preventing a higher mark. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6