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About Hockey Cards

About Hockey Cards

Hockey cards are a type of sports trading card that highlights one or more hockey players, the player’s stats and other information about their sporting careers.
History of Hockey Cards

History of Hockey Cards

While there is proof of earlier hockey cards in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the first official hockey cards were sold by Imperial Tobacco Canada in 1910-1911. The 1910-1911 C56 set was issued before the National Hockey League (NHL) existed and featured players from the National Hockey Association (NHA). You could find these hockey cards in cigarette packs from Imperial Tobacco Canada. These cards were created with Bavarian limestone and were produced for only 3 years.

In 1917, the NHL was formed, leading to the production of more hockey cards in 1924 by Champs Cigarettes. Hockey trading cards stopped being distributed in cigarette packs and were issued by chocolate and gum companies to attract younger buyers. O-Pee-Chee Gum Company and Howie Morenz Canadian Chewing Gum Limited joined the market before a pause in production due to World War II. In the 1950s, hockey cards made a comeback with Parkhurst, called Parkies Hockey Bubble Gum at the time. Parkhurst was the first to create hockey card packs and influenced modern-day NHL card packs. Topps Chewing Gum followed shortly after Parkhurst.

Forty years later, Score landed the NHL licensing to produce NHL cards and improved the industry-standard quality, and released a premium hockey card brand called Pinnacle. Eventually, Upper Deck secured a contract to exclusively manufacture NHL hockey cards and continues to hold the license to this day.
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