The 1951-52 Parkhurst Set

[jasonc]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

During the 1940s, no hockey sets were made because of the war. The government needed card companies to ship all their gum ingredients and paper overseas to help the soldiers. So, because no sets were made during the 1940s, this means that when the 51' Parkies came out, almost every card was a rookie!

And you're right, the cards are very ugly! They are small, have blank backs, very little color, poor registration, etc. The biggest issue is that they were cut all over the place. So, for years, trimmers would get an over-sized card in EX condition, chop it up, and turn it into a NM-MT card. So, if you're going to collect these cards in higher grade, then lots of them are going to come your way. There is really no way you can tell, and the only way to avoid this problem is by collecting lower-grade.

For a long time, people would start with the big three. In other words, they would go after the Howe, Richard and Sawchuk first, and then go after the others. But these three are very expensive now and a lot of people can't do this anymore. It's actually not a bad idea to start with the tier two players, such as Harvey, Geoffrion, Lindsay, Delvecchio, Kelly, etc.

Good luck!

Good points! If I do tackle it, it would definitely be low grade! The Big 3 are already pretty expensive so finding them in low grade would likely be my goal!