1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Bob Plager #161 Bilingual Back St. Louis Blues

Description

1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Bob Plager #161 Bilingual Back St. Louis Blues Some cards are about stats and some are about folklore, and Bob Plager's 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee issue is firmly in the second category. The famous moustache, the assistant captain's A on the shoulder and that knowing look all belong to the Blues defenseman who spent 11 seasons in St. Louis, wore number 5, captained the club in 1970-71 and became one of the most beloved figures in franchise history, a status confirmed when the Blues raised his number to the rafters in 2017. His name is also permanently attached to the most reproduced photograph in hockey, Bobby Orr airborne after the 1970 Stanley Cup winner, a moment Plager was on the ice for and joked about for the rest of his life. He was traded to St. Louis from the Rangers in 1967, played 615 games in a Blues uniform, and later became a coach, scout and storyteller whose number retirement ceremony was one of the emotional nights of the modern era, and his death in a 2021 highway accident brought tributes from across the sport. This card, from the second series of the 340 card 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee set, is the paper version of that legacy, with the tan border, vertical St. Louis Blues lettering and the drop shadow name stripe that define the issue. The back carries a bilingual English and French biography plus a full career record ending with 570 games, 37 goals and 164 assists, and it is a standard O-Pee-Chee bilingual back rather than a puzzle back. The 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Bob Plager #161 card is a smart pickup for Blues team collectors, Plager family collectors who already own brother Barclay and brother Bill, and anyone building a 1970s set with personality. the portrait area is clean and bright, the moustache and hair detail are sharp, and the main tan border shows only a small ding on the top right corner with a whisper of edge wear along the bottom, while centering sits near 55/45 left to right with a slightly wider left margin. The reverse is well inked, free of writing or tape, and shows only a hint of tan tone at the extreme edge, and this bilingual reverse is original to the card and not a puzzle back. The conservative call is EX-MT 6, with crisp color, four mostly sharp corners and a clean surface, and the small corner ding plus the minor centering variance keep it from a higher grade. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6