1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Nick Libett #49 Detroit Red Wings Left Wing

Description

1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Nick Libett #49 Detroit Red Wings Left Wing Add a hard-working fan favorite from the Dead Wings era with this 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee Nick Libett #49 card, a vintage single starring one of the most durable forwards to wear the Detroit Red Wings sweater in the 1970s. Drawn from the red-bordered, deckle-edged 1973-74 O-Pee-Chee set, the card features Libett leaning into his stance in the classic white and red Wings jersey with the RED WINGS pennant and his position, left wing, printed across the bottom. A Hamilton, Ontario native who turned pro in 1963-64, Libett became a fixture on Detroit's left flank for over a decade, a dependable two-way winger who could chip in offense and grind along the wall. The back bio notes that he was chasing his 30-goal form of 1971-72, a season in which he hit the thirty-goal plateau, and that he had missed only two games over the previous five years, making him one of the most durable players on the roster, with the fun cartoon reveal that the Red Wings once sponsored an entire league just to land him. Libett went on to play more than eight hundred NHL games, almost all of them in Detroit before a late stop in Pittsburgh, and he remains a remembered name among long-time Red Wings collectors who chased his cards as kids. The reverse is a Canadian O-Pee-Chee bilingual back, printed in Canada with English and French biography, the 1972-73 season record of 19 goals and 34 assists for 53 points, and a cartoon panel, rather than a puzzle back, and this copy is on the standard darker gray stock. On close inspection the front shows a few faint surface marks and tiny greenish print specks in the photo area, rounded and lightly worn corners with the top-left and bottom-left a bit softer, minor edge nicking along the red border, and centering that is fairly even with a slight shift toward the bottom. The back is clean and free of markings with only gentle edge wear. With scattered surface specks and rounded corners but no creases, a conservative raw grade of VG 3 is the honest call, because the light front marks and corner wear hold it back from the Excellent tier. Grade Estimate: VG 3