1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Don Bahnuik #86 1966 Grey Cup Championship Debut Saskatchewan Roughriders

Description

1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Don Bahnuik #86 1966 Grey Cup Championship Debut Saskatchewan Roughriders Sometimes a card's entire pitch is one perfect pose, and the 1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Don Bahnuik #86 delivers it, a full-body shot of a defensive tackle crouched at the line with arms spread on a Regina practice field, the rare field photo in a set built mostly on studio portraits. O-Pee-Chee's 132-card CFL issue organized its players team by team, and this card sits inside the coveted Saskatchewan block numbered 79 through 92. It was dealt in ten-cent wax packs with eight cards and bubble gum, the same packs that make this set, the last CFL release of the O-Pee-Chee run of its era, a cornerstone of Canadian collections, with Joe Theismann's rookie at number 27 as the chase card and workhorses like Bahnuik as the glue. The back bio ties Bahnuik to the franchise's turning point. He made his pro debut with the Roughriders in 1966, the year the club won the first Grey Cup championship in franchise history, and earned the starting defensive tackle job in 1970. Listed at 6-foot-3, 245 pounds, a non-import developed by the Regina Rams, with the back's cartoon panel nodding to that origin, he represents the local-grown depth that kept Saskatchewan competitive through the early 1970s until the club reached the 1972 Grey Cup. For collectors building a Riders run back through the 1960s title, pairing this card with Gary Brandt at number 87 links two linemen of the same era, one on each side of the ball. this is the cleanest card on the front of the sheet, with nearly sharp corners, a firm and glossy photo surface, and no visible creasing, scuffing, or print defects on the front. The only true flaws are a faint tan tint along the extreme left border and normal light handling rub at the bottom edge, plus the standard off-white border tone that keeps O-Pee-Chee cards of this set from grading higher than they look. The reverse shows bright blue ink, crisp French and English paragraphs, and a light freckle or two. This is the genuine Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, not a puzzle back. We estimate EX-MT 5, capped short of NM by the faint edge tone and storage freckling rather than by any damage. The raw 1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Don Bahnuik #86 is an outstanding display card and a strong candidate for a first slab of the set. Grade Estimate: EX-MT 5