The Dad’s Cookies hockey card series consisted of 144 cards, unorthodoxly measuring 1 7/8″ wide and 5 3/8″ tall. The backs of each card were exactly the same with a special offer for a mail-in NHLPA decal. The fronts were simple with a picture of the player and their stats from the 1969-70 season (with name and team, of course).
Each of the 144 players wore an identical National Hockey League Players Association jersey. There were no team cards, league leaders or trophy cards – just 144 individual players.
With only an average of ten players per each of the fourteen teams represented in the series, there was a high number of star cards in the set. Among those were Jean Beliveau, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Bobby Clarke and a stellar rookie, Gilbert Perreault. Gilbert Perreault’s rookie card from the O-Pee-Chee series of the same year can fetch upwards of $100. A Dad’s Cookies Gilbert Perreault card recently sold on eBay for a comparative bargain of $5.50.
Much of the 1970-71 Dad’s Cookies NHL set can be found at our virtual collection here at Vintage Hockey Cards Report. That particular set is not quite complete but will be in the near future.
This set rivals the 1965-66 Coca-Cola NHL set in it’s non mainstream uniqueness. That set featured much smaller cards in black and white with the grand total of 108 in the complete collection. Unlike the Dad’s cards, the Coca-Cola cards featured the players in their team’s jerseys.
Other outside-the-box sets from that era include the 1973-74 Quaker Oats World Hockey Association set. A little later on, there was a small set put out by TCMA.