One of the most significant hockey card finds of the last decade turned up during the Sport Card and Memorabilia Expo in Toronto.
A collector showed up at the Heritage Auctions booth on the first full day with several cards from the 1955-56 Parkhurst Quaker Oats set.
Among the group were short printed and virtually impossible to find cards of Toronto Maple Leaf goalie Harry Lumley and coach King Clancy, as well as a Jacques Plante card which is also short printed and hard to find though not as extremely rare as the Lumley and Clancy cards. The other extremely rare card, Maurice Richard, was not part of the find.
“This is very significant,” said Lee Iskowitz of Heritage Auctions, “There are very few of these out there. We have never seen a Lumley.”
The Quaker Oats set is a parallel of the 1955-56 Parkhurst set. The exception is that the card backs are green instead of red. The cards were found inside Canadian boxes of Quaker cereal.
Quaker ran a promotional contest tied to the cards. Anyone who collected the entire set of cards could trade them in for a bicycle. The short printed cards made it very difficult to complete the set.
Only a handful of the Lumley and Clancy cards are known to exist. PSA’s population report shows only two Lumley cards, with one being a 1 and the other a 4. There have been three Clancy cards graded, with a 5 and 7 among them. There have only been two Richards graded, with PSA issuing grades of 2 and 4.
The Plante is considered a rookie card, though he did appear in an action shot card the previous season. Although the Plante card is short printed, it has been graded by PSA more than any other card in the set (54).
Among the other unique items that turned up at the Heritage booth was a pair of century old collectible decal bats.
One was from Hillerich and Bradsby, makers of Louisville Slugger, with a Rogers Hornsby decal. The other was a Tecumseh-branded Canadian bat with an image of George “Mooney” Gibson.
A native of London, ON, Gibson was a catcher who joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1905. In 1909, Gibson held Detroit’s Ty Cobb to just two stolen bases in the World Series, which Pittsburgh won. He played for 12 seasons with the Pirates and two for the New York Giants.
After retiring, he became baseball’s first Canadian manager. He was skipper for the Pirates from 1920 to 1923, and again from 1932 to 1934. He also managed the Chicago Cubs in 1925.
Record Crowd
While show owner and promoter Steve Menzie did not yet have an official attendance total for the show, it was easily the most well-attended Expo in the 35-year history of the semi-annual event.
“Within a couple hours of the doors opening Friday morning, it was busy,” he said.
The show filled three halls in the Toronto International Centre. The large hall, Hall 5, has been the show’s main hall in most shows since it began in 1989. Two other halls were added, including one hosting the autograph guests and featuring a stage for interviews and Q and A sessions with them.
Dave Yeates, President and CEO of Grosnor, Canada’s largest distributor in the industry, reminisced about how big the show has become.
“Even when the show was at its peak in the 1990s, it still didn’t fill all of (Hall 5),” he said. “Now, there are three halls and it is packed.”
Grosnor was among the several partners of the show with a corporate presence. Others included eBay, PSA, Beckett, COMC, Upper Deck, Ultra Pro and many more. For the first time at the show, there were also insurance companies specializing in sports collectibles on site.
Bedard Drives Activity
While Upper Deck’s 2023-24 products with Connor Bedard rookie cards were the most popular wax boxes on the floor, the real impact that Bedard had was in the grading area. The show provided the first opportunity for most hockey collectors to be able to personally submit Connor Bedard cards to the major grading companies.
Display cases on the floor had graded singles ranging from stars of the 1950s through 1970s, to the more rare rookies, inserts and parallels from more recent sets. Although sets and unopened boxes were available for all sports, about 80 per cent of the graded, high-end and vintage cards were hockey. Surprisingly, basketball was the next most popular sport on the floor, followed by baseball and football.
There were also a number of dealers who had graded soccer singles available. Toronto has a big Major League Soccer following, and the frenzy over Lionel Messi cards has not settled down since he left Europe for Miami. With the 2024 Euro tournament this summer, there has been a lot of interest in Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham, considered the best player in the world right now and expected to be the cornerstone of the England team. The Manchester City trio of Erling Haaland, Rodri and Kevin de Bruyn are also moving, as is French star Kylian Mbappe of Paris-St. Germain.
Autographed memorabilia and regional collectibles were big, with hockey and particularly Wayne Gretzky items being most visible on the floor.
Autograph Signers
The show opened up Friday morning with Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier signing in the morning, followed by a line-up of retired NHL stars. A number of former NHL stars and Hall of Famers were signing throughout Saturday and Sunday at the show, with many of them on stage for Q and A sessions. Among the non-hockey stars signing were former Blue Jays all-star George Bell, former UGC world champion Georges St. Pierre and Chicago Bulls legend Dennis Rodman.
On Sunday, five-time Grey Cup winner and NFL star quarterback Warren Moon was among the guests.
While the Toronto Expo is in the books, many of the dealers and corporate exhibitors will be on their way to Edmonton for the Edmonton Expo, the largest show in western Canada, next weekend.
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