1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Craig Ramsay #262 Rookie Card Buffalo Sabres

Description

1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Craig Ramsay #262 Rookie Card Buffalo Sabres Celebrate one of the NHL’s great defensive forwards with the 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee Craig Ramsay #262 Rookie Card Buffalo Sabres. Ramsay appears in Buffalo’s original white sweater against a rich orange background, gripping his stick beside the classic charging-buffalo crest. The portrait has the approachable, direct quality that makes early O-Pee-Chee hockey cards so appealing, while the tan border and vertical Buffalo Sabres lettering deliver unmistakable vintage style. Card #262 is Ramsay’s recognized rookie card and an excellent target for Sabres collectors, Selke Trophy collectors and anyone assembling notable first cards from the 1970s. Ramsay spent his entire 14-year NHL playing career with Buffalo, an increasingly rare one-team achievement. Drafted 19th overall in 1971, he became a cornerstone of the Sabres’ checking game and formed a highly effective shutdown partnership with Don Luce, later joined by Danny Gare. Ramsay helped Buffalo reach the 1975 Stanley Cup Final, recorded at least 20 goals in eight consecutive seasons and ultimately finished with 252 goals, 420 assists and 672 points in 1,070 games. His durability was equally remarkable: he played 776 consecutive games before injury ended the streak. In his final season, 1984-85, Ramsay won the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward. The Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame documents his one-club career, 776-game streak, eight straight 20-goal seasons and Selke victory [1](https://etobicokesports.ca/inductees/craig-ramsay/). After playing, he built a lengthy coaching career and earned a Stanley Cup as an assistant coach with Tampa Bay in 2004, extending the card’s appeal to coaching and championship collections. The reverse reflects Ramsay’s early career. It notes that Buffalo selected him in the second round of the 1971 amateur draft, discusses his emergence during the 1971-72 season and lists his first NHL totals. A cartoon highlights the pick, while the biography is repeated in English and French. This is explicitly an original Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual biography/statistics back, not a puzzle back. The “O-P-C” and “Printed in Canada” text is visible, and the set checklist identifies #262 as Ramsay’s rookie card [3](https://www.cardboardconnection.com/1972-73-o-pee-chee-hockey-cards). All four corners are intact and retain fairly square profiles, with light softening most noticeable at the upper-left and lower-right. The left and bottom edges have mild roughness and a few tiny fibre chips, while the top and right edges are comparatively clean. The orange front remains bright, and the white sweater shows good contrast; scattered fine print dots and light surface specks are visible under magnification. The reverse has uniform cream toning, a few faint age spots and minor edge wear without visible writing or paper loss. Centering is approximately 50/50 left to right and 50/50 top to bottom. No definite crease, wrinkle, pinhole, wax stain or indentation is apparent in the sleeve scans, though very fine bends cannot be ruled out without examining the card outside the holder. A conservative EX-MT 6 estimate recognizes the strong centering, colour, corners and seemingly crease-free card stock. Small edge touches, normal toning and minor print or surface flaws prevent a Near Mint designation. This is a sharp-looking raw rookie of a beloved career Sabre and one of hockey’s defining two-way forwards. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 6