Young Canada's Rarest

Well buccos, I managed to end 2017 on a bang with the purchase of a 1971 O-Pee-Chee Bazooka CFL card off the ol' 'bay. I mentioned it previously here but it's a set that very few people know exist.

Much like the 1971 Bazooka Baseball and Football package design sets that were issued in the States (not to mention the mysterious but reasonably plentiful--and larger in number--Baseball proof set), O-Pee-Chee issued Hockey and Canadian Football League sets in Canada.  Unlike their US counterparts, these mirrored the designs of the regular issue sets from each sport that year, just miniaturized and blank backed.

If cut correctly, the Bazooka's should measure 1 7/8 x 2 3/4".  However, things being what they are, a proper cut is not something that can be counted upon here:

To compare, here is my example next to a standard sized (2 1/2" x 3 1/2") CFL card from that year: 

I thought the Alouettes name had turned from green to blue but it's Fairholm that is the anomaly. Two other cards from the set have been seen by me, at least in scanned form.  This one is in private hands now and is easily the best of the three:

A third has tape on the end, typical for the end card of a Bazooka panel and is still out there for purchase I believe:

The cuts are a little close on the vertical edges but these three would be found together on panel #3.  The thing is, only three other subjects are checklisted, in the only place I have ever seen mention of these cards, namely Andy Malycky's Collecting Canadian Football, Vol. 1.  In fact, the three cards shown above are the same ones used to illustrate the set in Andy's guide. The other three checklisted are, from what would be panel #8:

# 22 Dick Weslowski (Hamilton)

# 23 Silas McKinnie (Saskatchewan)

# 24 John Lagrone (Edmonton)

There's not much else known about these.  Not the whereabouts of the other 18 cards, pictures of the three players on panel #8 above, nor a box, nor any idea how they were distributed or why they are so rare. It's possible they were a test issue but that's not certain at all. All I know is, there are six possible cards known and I have one of them.

Bubbleicious!

Every once in a while a Topps item comes up at auction that absolutely floors me.  Presently, this year's winning entry belongs to the good folks and Friends o'the Archive at BST Auctions.

Topps released a scarce set of Baseball cards on the backs of certain Bazooka boxes during the summer of 1959.  Twenty three in number, the set features gorgeous color photography (possibly the best ever done by Topps) and has a number of ridiculously short short prints and two variations of the Hank Aaron card.  471 have been graded as I type this and two boxes are also noted in the PSA pop report.

However, if you really want a scarce Bazooka set from 1959, you need to purse the equally spectacular Football cards. With 18 subjects and two variations of the Chuck Conerly card it's about twice as hard to find an example based upon PSA's grading. No boxes are shown by PSA but BST has one in their upcoming auction of goodies, many of which hail from the formidable collection of yet another Freind o'the Archive: Mike Blaisdell.

Feast your eyes on this:

Wow, right?!  A couple of points:
1) How the cello survived almost 60 years is beyond me.
2) That's the original Bazooka Joe blowing a ginormous bubble around said cello
3) There's no splash on the front saying a football card lurks on the back, which is kinda weird.

The card:

Like the Baseball box, it was the 20 pack that had the goods:

There wouldn't be another Bazooka Football set until 1971, when they issued not one but two sets, one in the US and another, stupendously rare one in Canada with CFL players.  Baseball of course was represented every year through 1971 so it's safe to assume the inaugural issue of Football was a bust, especially since the roylties paid by Topps to the NFL in the late 50's were negligible.

This is the only box like this I have ever seen; I can't find any scans of the two Baseball boxes that PSA has graded so for now this is the only eye candy available.