1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Minnesota North Stars #NNO Team Logo Pushout Insert 1st Series

Description

1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Minnesota North Stars #NNO Team Logo Pushout Insert 1st Series The green and gold roundel of the Minnesota North Stars, a bold N with an arrow driving into a star, is one of the most distinctive visual identities of the expansion era, and it remains a favourite of logo collectors decades after the franchise skated south to Dallas. This 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Minnesota North Stars #NNO Team Logo Pushout Insert 1st Series decal presents that roundel in deep kelly green on white, exactly the crest that hung over the Met Center and adorned the sweaters of Bill Goldsworthy, the beloved Goldy whose goal-scoring made him the face of Minnesota hockey throughout the 1970s. Like its sixteen companions in the 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Team Logos insert set, this pushout was seeded one per pack in first series wax packs, and it carries the Canadian bilingual instructions on the front, PUNCH OUT, WET BACK AND PRESS ONTO ANY SURFACE FOR TEN SECONDS above and ENLEVEZ EN POUSSANT, HUMECTEZ LE DOS ET COLLEZ SUR N'IMPORTE QUELLE SURFACE EN PRESSANT PENDANT DIX SECONDS below, the signature of O-Pee-Chee's London Ontario press run. The 1973-74 North Stars were a hard-working club in a hockey-mad market, and memorabilia from these years has become steadily harder to source as collectors of defunct and relocated franchises chase every trace of the old Met Center nights, from program covers to gum-backed decals like this one. Goldsworthy's number eight would later be retired by the franchise, an honour that underscores how central he was to Minnesota's hockey identity during the very seasons this decal represents, and the North Stars roundel also benefits from renewed attention among collectors of relocated franchises, a market that has grown every year since the club's 1993 departure, and green logo paper from the Met Center years has become correspondingly difficult to locate in untouched, gum-backed form. the front shows solid green ink with clean white fields, the ring centred slightly left of perfect but well within pleasing bounds, corners that show only light softness, and edges free of chipping with a whisper of wear at the bottom. The reverse is blank adhesive-backed cardboard bearing the die-cut circle, evenly toned without stains or markings, and we state explicitly that this is the Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual front instruction variant with a plain gum reverse, not a puzzle back and not a bilingual back design. Considering the strong colour and the minor handling noted above, the conservative raw grade is EX 5, a fair placement for a clean survivor of a quietly beloved franchise. Grade Estimate: EX 5