1965-66 Coca-Cola NHL Hockey Card Set

During the NHL hockey season of 1965-66, hockey card collectors had a new product to go after. Topps was the monopoly since Parkhurst dropped off the scene after the 1963-64 series. The 1964-65 Topps ‘Tall Boys’ set was the most popular and most valuable in years. It was just too tempting for someone else not to put a hockey card product on the market.

This alternative to Topps was free! Sort of… In order to get your 1965-66 Coca-Cola hockey cards, you had to drink a lot of Coke products. In fact, just to get one team set of 18 cards, you had to collect ten bottle caps from Coca-Cola or Sprite that had the desired team on the cap liner. You then mailed in the ten cap liners and Coca-Cola mailed you back a team set of 18 cards. The cards were all connected in a row and were perforated for easy separation.

To get the full set of 108 cards (six teams with 18 cards per team), a young fella would have to down at least 60 Cokes or Sprites. That, my friends, is a heaping helping of sugar just to get some cards that were much lower grade than Topps. Each team set of 18 came with an additional 19th card that you mailed back into Coca-Cola to receive your album.

The 1965-66 Coca-Cola cards were simple black and white on the front with a picture of the player and their name in a standard font at the bottom. On the back, it was ‘just the facts, ma’am’. Name, vitals (birthplace, birthdate, position, height/weight, last amateur club), and their stats in the NHL.

What was missing that was always found on vintage hockey cards was the little bio or cartoon (‘Don likes fishing in the off season!’ or ‘Gerry makes up for his lack of skating ability with his bone-crushing hits!’). You can’t really call this series cardboard. The cards are printed on what can be described as ‘heavy paper’. Oh, and they were not numbered.

The full set values at up to $500. To get any kind of value out of the 1965-66 Coca-Cola series, it seems the cards should still be attached in the 18 card team sets. Individual detached cards seem to not sell well on eBay. However, the complete teams are popular with bidders and can sell for quite high.

1965-66 Coca-Cola NHL Hockey Card Checklist: