Oh, Happy Day!

After my last (rather adolescent) post, it's time to return with something a little more serious today.  Really, really old cards have pretty much become my collecting obsession in recent months, and today I've got another nice one from the 1930s:

Here's Clarence Day, affectionately known as "Happy", later shortened to "Hap".  Hap is a Maple Leafs legend, having been with the club in one capacity or another nearly every year between 1924 and 1950!  He began as a player in the days when the team was still known as the St. Pats, before Conn Smythe purchased them and dubbed them the Maple Leafs.

Clarence was team captain for 11 years, and brought a Stanley Cup to the city of Toronto during that time.  At the tail end of his career he spent one season with the New York Americans, and then dabbled in refereeing for a couple of years.  By 1940 he was back with the Leafs for what would be a 10-year coaching stint.  The team captured 5 Stanley Cups during that decade, and Clarence established himself as one of the top coaches in the history of the franchise.  He'd be a part of yet another Stanly Cup for the city of Toronto while serving as assistant GM before departing the franchise (awkwardly, to say the least) in the late '50s.

This was picked up from the same seller, and in the same purchase as the Bun Cook and George Patterson cards I've shown previously from this legendary set.  Because of that nasty top right corner this card received a grade of "Good - 2", which is perfectly fine with me since it's the only reason I was able to afford it.

There's another flaw that I actually love, and if you've got a sharp eye you may have already spotted it.  Look very closely along the top edge of the above scan and you'll see two stripes that are much lighter in color than the rest of the cardboard.  Follow those lighter streaks and you can see they proceed downward and towards the edge of the card.  If your eyesight is really good, you'll see similar streaks on the bottom corners.  I believe this was caused by some collector keeping this card in an old album, something like this:

Pretty cool, huh?  This obviously detracts from the value of the card for some, but it doesn't bother me in the least, in fact I think it adds character.  I love that this card is so old that it was stored in this fashion.

This 80+ year old card of a 7-time Stanley Cup winner and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame set me back less than $50.  My trio of cards from this set actually came to well under $100 total.  With names like Eddie Shore, Howie Morenz and Dit Clapper on the checklist I'm not delusional enough to think I'll ever complete this one, but I'm happy with my three for the time being...