1980-81 O-Pee-Chee #289 – Mark Messier Rookie Card

Unlike other players that came to the NHL from the World Hockey Association for the 1979-80 season as part of the merger, Mark Messier did not get on a hockey card in the 1979-80 set. After playing in just 47 games with the WHA’s Cincinnati Stingers in 1978-79 and scoring only one goal, maybe Messier wasn’t expected to make a career of it in the NHL. He entered the 1979 NHL Entry Draft and, despite his year of professional experience, the Edmonton Oilers didn’t take him until the third round, 48^th overall.

Messier did play for the Oilers during the 1979-80 season and Mark did make a career of it. A legendary career, in fact. Six Stanley Cups, two Hart Memorial Trophies as the NHL’s MVP, one Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, two Lester B. Pearson Awards as NHL MVP as voted by the Player’s Association and fifteen All-Star games. Not a bad career, at all! On top of all those accolades, Messier was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2007.

Messier’s 1980-81 O-Pee-Chee Rookie Card #289 is understandably quite sought after. Beckett Hockey Monthly values the card at a low of $60 and a high of $120, a value that has risen from $50 / $100 in the past year. The card is considered UER or an uncorrected error card. O-Pee-Chee accidentally printed on the back of the card that Messier shoots right when he is, in fact, a left-handed shot. The error was minor and never corrected.

Perhaps adding to the value of the card is the fact that Topps didn’t produce a Messier card for their 1980-81 series. Typically, O-Pee-Chee and Topps were a mirror of each other but not in this case.

The Messier card is the most valuable in the 1980-81 series. The rookie card of Ray Bourque also appears in this set and shares the same upper value of $100 with a lower value of $40. The Bourque card also appears in the Topps series and has a high value of $80 (Topps are printed for the U.S. market and have always been printed in higher quantities than the Canadian O-Pee-Chee, thus the value difference).

Mark currently holds a position at the head office of the NHL’s New York Rangers. The Rangers were one of three teams that Messier played with during his NHL career. The other two teams were the Vancouver Canucks and, of course, the Edmonton Oilers. Messier enjoyed two stints as a player with the New York Rangers, bringing the first Stanley Cup to Madison Square Garden since 1940.

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