One of the rarest hockey card sets doesn’t date back to the game’s humble beginnings. Talk to any collector and they’ll tell you putting together a 
complete set of 1971-72 Bazooka hockey panels is something that happens to folks with money– or in their dreams.
Distributed for only a brief time in a very limited area of Canada, the Bazooka boxes are similar to their American baseball and football counterparts of the 1960s and early 70s in that they contain a three-card panel on the back of a 30-pack box of individually wrapped bubble 
gum.
Printed in Canada, the cards are designed along the same lines as the ’71-72 O-Pee-Chee set but the cards on the back of the Bazooka boxes have blank backs, are smaller and numbered to 36.
At the National Sports Collectors Convention last week, fans of rare modern era cards had a chance to gaze on one of the most rare items associated with the set: a complete, unused Bazooka box with a Bobby Orr card on the back. Orr, the last card in the set, shares the back with Ron Ellis (#34) and Stan Mikita (#35).
Because OPC put tape on the end of each box to better seal the contents, many of the cards that sat on either end of the panels are plagued by tape stains or damage but the box on display in Chicago never had that problem, which could be one reason why it sold for a cool $16,000 on Saturday.
What few single (cut) cards of Orr in low grade come on the market, usually sell for four figure prices. A few Bazooka hockey cards, including a single cut Orr, are currently listed on eBay.
Larry Kerrigan of Top Notch Collectible showed us the box and talked about the set’s scarcity. If you can’t see the video player below, click here.
1971-72 Bazooka Hockey Checklist
1 Phil Esposito
2 Frank Mahovlich
3 Ed Van Impe
4 Bobby Hull
5 Henri Richard
6 Gilbert Perreault
7 Alex Delvecchio
8 Denis DeJordy
9 Ted Harris
10 Gilles Villemure
11 Dave Keon
12 Derek Sanderson
13 Orland Kurtenbach
14 Bob Nevin
15 Yvan Cournoyer
16 Andre Boudrias
17 Frank St. Marseille
18 Norm Ullman
19 Garry Unger
20 Pierre Bouchard
21 Roy Edwards
22 Ralph Backstrom
23 Guy Trottier
24 Serge Bernier
25 Bert Marshall
26 Wayne Hillman
27 Tim Ecclestone
28 Walt McKechnie
29 Tony Esposito
30 Rod Gilbert
31 Walt Tkaczuk
32 Roger Crozier
33 Ken Schinkel
34 Ron Ellis
35 Stan Mikita
36 Bobby Orr
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