1971 O-Pee-Chee

I'm pretty familiar with O-Pee-Chee cards from the 1980s and early 1990s. If you don't know, OPC was a Canadian company that produced Topps cards in Canada. The sets were generally the same as the Topps set each year, except that the OPC cards often had the O-Pee-Chee logo and English and French on the backs. I'm much less familiar with OPC in the 1970s.

I went looking for 1971 O-Pee-Chee Phillies cards on eBay. I was hoping to find a team set but the cards were being sold individually and some were pricey (more expensive than then equivalent Topps cards. I believe they are considerably rarer that Topps which would account for the higher price.  I decided to get one now and wait awhile for the rest.

1971 O-Pee-Chee #49 Don Money

As a comparison, here's Money's 1971 Topps card.

There is literally no difference between them, except for the centering

Here are the backs.

The backs are not the same. I've always liked 1971 because of the floating head in a box on the back. O-Pee-Chee puts the floating head in a star-burst in the center. I like that more. The O-Pee-Chee color is also more attractive. All the text from the Topps card is on the O-Pee-Chee in English on the right and French on the left.

I also acquired a 1976 Phillies O-Pee-Chee card which I'll share a little later.  I'm gonna have to get some more of these.

What surprised me is that no where on the card does it reference "O-Pee-Chee" or "OPC". The copyright line on the O-Pee-Chee card says T.C.G (Topps Chewing Gum) just like the Topps card does.