Antiques Roadshow

APPRAISER

We're looking at a hockey card of probably, my opinion, the greatest defenseman that I've seen in my lifetime, Bobby Orr. Can you tell me how you got it and what you know about it?

GUEST

Yeah, I, uh, definitely agree with you there, Phil, as far as being, uh, one of the greatest. I, uh, in earnest collected baseball cards from 1976 to probably early '80s. Not a hockey card guy. Found this in my collection probably around 1980. As far as acquisition of it, flea market, trading, which we did a lot of back then. Did not purchase it.

APPRAISER

Okay.

GUEST

Did, it was not something that I consciously purchased.

APPRAISER

It's a Topps card. This is the English- language version, which was a test set done in 1966. It was done just to test the market in the States. Hockey was super-popular in Canada, and the cards would sell up there with no problem. But they wanted to see how hockey cards were going to be sold in America when the expansion was coming through. Once hockey expanded, expansion came in other cities, interest grew, the number of cards printed went up. There's some great cards out there that have been printed in large quantities. Gretzky rookies, Lemieux rookies, they're very valuable, but they did print a lot more than this card.

GUEST

Well, I think Bobby bringing two Stanley Cups to Boston in the early '70s didn't hurt, either.

APPRAISER

I'm surprised they didn't have every Boston fan in, in, in, in the state buying a card.

GUEST

Absolutely.

APPRAISER

Yeah, Bobby Orr is considered the Holy Grail of hockey cards. The other thing I would point out is, they did reprints of these, and you have to know what to look for. There are certain little key factors. I looked at this under a glass, I had another appraiser look at it with me, we confirmed, it's authentic. It's an original card.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

Have you had the card appraised? Have you ever tried to sell it? Had any offers on it?

GUEST

Only had an offer on it, approximately in 1990, and I did have a gentleman offer me $500 for it.

APPRAISER

When it comes to cards like this, the grade is everything. And nowadays, with the market going crazy with graded cards, invest a little time and a little money, and have the card sent out and professionally graded by one of the grading companies.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

Because the price will increase exponentially the higher the grade. And when you look at your card, it's got a little off-centering, but the corners are regularly nice. There's a little bit of a crimp in one corner. I would probably say it'd come back about a five? With a little luck, it could come back higher. The card, in that grade, for auction estimate, is gonna sell somewhere in the $5,000 to $8,000 range.

GUEST

Nice, nice.

APPRAISER

Uh, now, if it came back a ten-- which it's not, but potentially, let's say in a dream world-- it's about a quarter- of-a-million-dollar card.

GUEST

Wow.

APPRAISER

So it pays to get this thing graded, because again, the difference between a five, 5.5, or a six, it jumps up every single notch.

GUEST

Okay.

APPRAISER

It's a hot card right now in the market.

GUEST

Fantastic.

APPRAISER

Yeah.