Introduction

[Clark]

So I would like to introduce myself because I am sure some of you are wondering who the hell is this Clark guy? He’s been here for a couple of weeks and posting all this crap on the hockey forum.

Well I am just another hockey loving Canadian male who happens to exchange real money for cardboard (Thanks ThoseBackPages). A guy who grew up about an hours drive from one the greatest landmarks in Canadian history. That’s right…......the O-Pee-Chee Gum factory in London, Ontario.

It all started at the ripe old age of 5 when I opened my first pack of O-Pee-Chee hockey cards. As I type this, I can remember the smell of freshly cut cardboard and rock hard stale gum like it was yesterday. I didn’t have a lot of money as a five year old, so I can thank my Mom for enabling my new found addiction. Thanks Mom!

Every year my friends and I eagerly awaited the latest release of OPC hockey. Every young boy in Canada collected hockey cards back then. School recess was like a ritual every fall as we stood around the school yard with a mit full of cards, while shuffling through and calling need him, got em, need em, got em until we completed our sets or ran out of money to buy more. Afterall we were kids!

This continued until 1985 for me. That is when I discovered new and more exciting things in life. Yup......music, beer (I am Canadian), and the fairer sex. The girls smelled much nicer than the stale, brittle gum from the O-Pee-Chee card packs.

In 1989 the great sports card collecting boom hit during my first year of college. Card stores were everywhere. The O-Pee-Chee factory was working overtime. Mark Messier rookie cards where selling for $200 bucks a pop and I had three!!! I thought, “I am going to be rich!!!” Maybe I should tuck away a few of those O-Pee-Chee factory sets and I won’t open them! $$$

Then OPC released their new “Premier” hockey cards with the latest rookie cards of the hottest young stars. Rookie cards the likes of Owen Nolan, Mike Ricci, and Bobby Holik! Plus O-Pee-Chee didn’t produce as many of the “Premier” cards as their flagship brand. I thought, “I am going to keep these Premier cards mint, store them in sheets and toploaders. No one else will, I am going to be rich”. Afterall these Premier cards are “rare”.

I will save you the details from then to now. Maybe for another time. The long story short, lets just say things didn’t go as planned.

So now that I am older, new music sucks, my liver is swollen from all the beer, and there are no women in my life, I woke up one morning and decided, “I think I am going to collect hockey cards again!”

And what a perfect time to start back up. Some rich guy paid 300 grand for a 1990’s Jordan card, Honus Wagner was trimmed, the Feds are handing out subpoenas, I gotta spend $500 on supplies to cover all the card sizes, learn about 15 parallels for every base card, and the grading companies “didn’t do nothing”.

So I’ll see you around the forums as we discuss this great hobby of ours. You know, the one that exchanges real money for cardboard.