Want to score 20 Gretzky rookie cards? You’ll have to bid at least $1.3M

A Saskatchewan family is in for a major windfall after discovering a massive collection of hockey cards from Wayne Gretzky’s rookie year.

The previously unopened case, which holds 16 sealed boxes of 1979 O-Pee-Chee hockey cards, could contain dozens of the most valuable and coveted hockey cards in history — Gretzky’s NHL debut card, when he signed with the Edmonton Oilers.

The family, who wishes to remain anonymous, has handed the box over to Heritage Auctions in the U.S. to handle the sale. As of press time, the current bid sits at US$1.325 million.

“To see something like this come by, it’s still one of the most sought-after cards on the market. So to see a full case with 16 unopened boxes, in the condition that they’re in, it’s pretty amazing,” Brad Hartlin, director market development for PSA Canada, a third-party authentication and grading company for trading cards and memorabilia, told Global News.

“To think that this was sitting out there since 1980, especially in the condition that they’re in, completely shocked me. It’s the find of a lifetime and it’s incredible for a hobbyist.”

Hartlin says PSA has graded more than 12,000 O-Pee-Chee Gretzky rookie cards over the years and only two of those have come back with grade of “gem mint PSA 10,” indicating a mint-condition card.

“His card is, I guess you can say, the Holy Grail card of the hockey card market.”

When determining a hockey card’s worth, Hartlin looks at four key factors: Is the image centred on the card? Are the corners crisp and undamaged? Are the edges of the card sharp and smooth? Is the surface of the card pristine?

“It’s very tough to get a PSA 10 designation,” he said, noting the valuation of a mint and near-mint card is vast.

A near-mint Gretzky rookie card can sell from $7,000 to $8,000, where a mint condition card can fetch millions.

In fact, the last mint condition Gretzky rookie card, sold by Heritage Auctions in 2021, fetched an eye-watering US$3.75 million (more than CA$5 million.)

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The catch with this batch of hockey cards, says Hartlin, is that there’s a good chance we’ll never find out exactly how many Gretzky cards are in the box, nor will we know their true condition.

“The person or people that buy it, in my opinion, will never open it. The value is in the cards being sealed the way they are. Every Gretzky card in that case could be off-centre, could have (packaging) gum on it, etc., so the major value is in it being sealed.

“There’s still a very good chance these cards are in great shape, especially when we can see the condition of the box shown in the Heritage Auctions videos. The bright whiteness of the boxes, the case being sealed, is a great sign.”

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Pressed to guess, Hartlin estimates that there could be upwards of 20 Gretzky cards in the 768 packs contained in the case.

(Global News spoke with Heritage Auctions about the significance of the find and how they went about prepping the case of cards for auction. Watch the video up top for all the details.)