1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Gary Brandt #87 Roughriders Centre Saskatchewan Roughriders

Description

1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Gary Brandt #87 Roughriders Centre Saskatchewan Roughriders The unglamorous cards tell you how good a team really was, and the 1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Gary Brandt #87 is a handsome portrait of exactly that kind of player, an offensive lineman who beat out an All-Star for a starting job and kept it. O-Pee-Chee's 132-card CFL set of 1972 was the last CFL issue of its generation, sold in ten-cent wax packs with eight cards and bubble gum and laid out team by team. The Riders block runs 79 through 92, and Brandt at 87 sits right between Bill Baker and Don Bahnuik, letting collectors assemble this franchise's entire front seven and interior line in a single, satisfying sequence, with Joe Theismann's set-defining rookie at 27 as the trophy everyone else hunts. The back bio is small but telling. After three years as a starting right guard, Gary took over at centre, replacing All-Star Ted Urness, and this card marks his sixth season with Saskatchewan, the French and English panels agreeing that he joined the club in 1967 and never gave the job back. Listed at 6-foot-1, 230 pounds, a non-import out of the University of Washington, Brandt protected the quarterback whose card hangs on the same sheet, Ron Lancaster at 79, during the years that pushed the Riders to the 1972 Grey Cup. The design quirk collectors notice first is the name line printed in light cyan ink low across the photo, a factory color shift that makes this card one of the most visually distinctive fronts in the set. the front is glossy and remarkably fresh, with sharp-looking corners, bright green jersey ink, and no creases or scuffs visible anywhere on the photo face; the cyan name print is weak by design, not wear. Centering runs slightly bottom heavy, leaving a taller top banner, and the right border shows the faintest handling shade. The reverse is one of the cleanest on this sheet, deep blue frame, crisp bilingual type, only the smallest tan fleck. This is an authentic Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, not a puzzle back. We estimate EX 4.5, a conservative call held back only by the centering and the naturally faint name print. A raw 1972 O-Pee-Chee CFL Gary Brandt #87 is a low-cost highlight for Riders line collectors. Grade Estimate: EX 4.5