Sunday, December 9, 2012

Excusez mon ignorance s'il vous plaît

I recently added another O-Pee-Chee card to my Billy Williams collection.  It's his oldest OPC card,


from 1965.  This is also the first 1965 O-Pee-Chee card  I've ever seen.  The front is identical to the Topps version...

  

....(OPC on the left, Topps on the right).  That I already knew.  But then I flipped the card over, expecting to see some French and English...


...and it was all in English.  My first thought was that the seller messed up and sent me a Topps card instead of the OPC version.  I was thinking I'll have to go through the hassle of contacting the seller, send the card back, and wait for my OPC version to arrive.

Then I looked at the fine print on the bottom...


...Printed in Canada.  This is the OPC version...so where is the French?

Like I said in the title, excuse my ignorance, please.  I just assumed that all O-Pee-Chee cards were bilingual.  And I assumed wrong.  A little research later, I now know that the first bilingual cards showed up in 1970, a result of a Canada's first Official Languages Act, passed in 1969.  But prior to that, the card backs were identical to the Topps' version, expect for a "Printed in Canada" line like the one on the '65 card.

I'm still in the market for Billy's 1968 O-Pee-Chee card.  When I do get one, I won't expect to see any French on the back, just an itty-bitty Printed in Canada.

3 comments:

  1. Huh, I didn't know that either. Learn something new every day!

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  2. the 1969 set also has the opc logo on the back instead of the topps logo which makes it easier to spot.

    i need to make the 'not a variation' posts for 1965-1970 and 1973, 75, and 76 easier to find over at oh my o-pee-chee!

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  3. I bought a 1990 Fleer Canadian card a few months ago, and was very disappointed that the only difference was the "printed in" line. I wouldn't have purchased it had I know that.

    JT, The Writer's Journey

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