Grabbing Gretzkys - 1989-90 Box Bottoms

I'm always casually on the lookout for interesting new cards of #99, the greatest hockey player ever to lace up skates, for my collection.  Sometimes I go many months between adding new Gretzky cards, other times I seem to be on a streak where they come in bunches.  The past few weeks I've been on one of those streaks!

Today I have a great new addition to my Gretzky collection to showcase, from the first hockey card set that I ever collected as a kid no less!  It's actually my newest Gretzky, having just shown up in the mailbox earlier today...

This is the image that most hockey card collectors are familiar with in terms of Wayne's 1989-90 Topps/O-Pee-Chee issue.  Not a bad card at all, and the first Gretzky card that I ever owned.

My recent pick-up features an entirely different photograph on this same design:

Yes, it's the 1989-90 O-Pee-Chee Box Bottom card!  Wax boxes of Topps and O-Pee-Chee product at the time often had four-card panels on the bottom that could be cut out and collected.  These box bottom cards would typically feature the same card design as the ones found within the box, but different photographs.  As far as the fronts go, they're sort of akin to the "photo variation" parallels that Topps has churned out so many of in recent years.

What stands out about many of these 1980s box bottom cards though is that they have backs as well!  I've seen some more modern box bottom cards that just have a plain cardboard back.  Those are still cool and unique cards, but I'm impressed when the manufacturer goes the extra mile to give us a back on the inside of the box that lines up perfectly with the front when the card is cut out.

These are simpler than the backs on the standard base cards, understandably so.  Instead of career statistics we get the prior season and career totals only.  Also, the cards are given alphabetical numbers (Gretzky is box topper card 'E' in this release, as you can see) as opposed to the numerical numbering scheme in the standard set.

This new pick-up will be a perfect counterpart to the Topps version of the 1989-90 Box Bottom card that I already own, pictured here.  Given my love and nostalgic feelings towards the '89-90 releases, I really should track down all of these at some point, but for now I'm happy to finally have both versions of the Gretzky in hand!

So there's the latest addition to my collection of The Great One.  These are somewhat rare, certainly much more so than the base cards from this set, but not impossible to find either.  You should be able to track one down for less than $10 if you're interested, and less than $5 if you spend time hunting for a bargain, or don't care much about condition.

I've got plenty of other awesome Gretzky cards to show off here in this series over the coming months and years.  In fact, this card is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of really cool Gretzky cardboard that I have yet to show off here on the blog!  I've even considered doing a series of posts where I countdown my favorite 99 Gretzky cards, but that will have to wait for another day as there are a few key cards I still want to land before I go there. 

How about you, do you have any box bottom cards in your collection?  If so, I'd love to hear about some of your favorites in the comments.  I'll be back with more of Wayne's cards soon, but in the meantime thanks as always for visiting!