Collector's Corner

Every time someone sees my Bobby Orr collection for the first time the inevitable question is just how exactly do I find all of my Orr memorabilia. Good question.

This week I’m going to talk about what I do and then show you a few items that I’ve picked up in the past few weeks.

Here is my basic checklist when searching for Orr collectibles.

1. Ebay – I’ve been using Ebay since 2000 and can safely say that I’ve built up my Orr collection must faster than I would have if I was only limited to sportscard stores and card shows.  I’ve also discovered alot of Orr stuff that I never knew existed by searching Ebay. My search on Ebay for Orr items is that same everyday. I first look at auctions that will be ending in the next 24 hours, then I look for newly listed auctions so that I can put an item on my watch list or occasionally use the buy it now feature if it’s an option.

Here are a couple of things I’ve picked up on Ebay in the last two weeks.

This is an invitation to the 1979 Challence Cup Luncheon. The Challenge Cup was a 3 game series that was played between the Russian National Team and a team of NHL All Stars. In case you’re wondering the Russians won the series. Anyways, Orr was getting the Lester Patrick Trophy which was awarded for oustanding service to hockey in the U.S. The inside looks like this.

It also came with the envelope and a return card.

I slao picked this up.

This is a 5 x 7 card that is part of a ten card set promoting Bruins games on UPN 38 for the 1995-96 season. This happened to be the first year that UPN was a network. The set also includes Adam Oates, Blaine Lacher, Cam Neely, Ray Bourque, Gerry Cheevers, Terry O’Reilly, Rick Middleton, Phil Esposito and Eddie Shore. The backs have each players lifetime statistics along with information about UPN Bruins ratings and such. 

Now for my second checklist item.

2. Local Sports Collectible Stores – It helps to build up a relationship with your local store so that they can let you know when any item of interest comes through the store. I’ve done that with two such stores in the area. Sportworld and Slapshot Sports Cards, both located in Saugus on Rt. 1. I’ve been lucky to get some vintage and oftentimes rare Orr items (and Bruins in general) from both places.  I got the Bobby Orr Lemonade Cans from Slapshot and one of my Orr sticks along with countless programs and rare clippings through Sportsworld. Check out Sportsworld’s website. www.sportsworld-usa.com. You’ll be amazed at all the new and vintage collectibles they have, and not just in hockey but all sports. If you’re near Saugus I highly recommend checking out both stores.

Here is an item I got at Sportsworld recently.

This is an article from the Oshawa Times, dated April 13, 1966. It descibes Orr’s junior team, the Oshawa Generals, winning the OHA Junior ‘A’ Crown and thus going on to play for the Memorial Cup. There’s a nice picture of Orr at the top left receiving the championship trophy. I think it’s safe to say that not too many of these articles have survived.

The third checklist item is this.

3. Sportscard Shows or Auctions- I don’t go to as many as I once did, but I make sure to hit the bigger area shows because that’s the place where you are more likely to find oddball Orr items that you normally don’t see. I’ve also been lucky to get to know a few dealers who know about my Orr collection and look for items for me. I get catalogues from some of the bigger hockey auction houses in Canada. There’s always Orr stuff offered. Usually it’s very expensive, but I’ve been able to get a few things over the years.

Finally number four.

4. Friends – Many times I’ve gotten a phone call from a friend who was at flea market or store and saw something Bobby Orr. Even if I already have the item, I always appreciate the thought. Sometimes however it really pays off. A friend saw an Orr game used stick on Craigslist and contacted me. I ended up getting it, but I would have never known about it without him.

So those are my checklist items for tracking down Orr memorabilia. Hoped you enjoyed the insight and my recent acquisitions.

This weeks Orr collectibles are ones that I have been meaning to feature for a long time, but I’ve always passed them over for one reason or another.

That doesn’t mean that they’re not interesting, but some other item(s) always just seemed to grab my attention a little more. That changes right now.

This week features one of the oldest forms of collectibles (or promotion). Withought further ado, let’s look at some Bobby Orr pins (or buttons as they also could be called).

First up is a set of four Bruins pins from the early 70’s. Orr is featured at the top left under the name Bob “Four Speed” Orr. “Bob” just sounds wrong. It should always be “Bobby”. “Four Speed” also seems forced. Bobby never really had a nickname that stuck, but all the buttons incorporated nicknames so I guess they had to come up with something. Besides Bucyk, Cheevers and McKenzie, pins were also made for Phil Esposito and Derek Sanderson.

Here we have a standard pin on top showing Bobby skating and a more unique pin on the bottom with a slogan that every Bruins fan in the 70’s was saying.

Up next are these two very similar buttons. I’m not really sure why they didn’t just stick with one of the designs, but I think the bottom button displays better mainly because of the “Boston Bruins” under Orr’s head.

Sticking with the theme of similar pins, these are two that advertize Orr’s annual skate-a-thon for charity. Besides being sponsored by two different companies, Orr wears his hair differently on each of the pins. Judging by his appearance, I would say these pins are from sometime in the mid to late 80’s.

Here are some more charitable buttons.

Finally, the last pin I’ll show you is rather tough to find.

This was put out by The Lions Club. Apparently they make pins for everything and sell and trade them. This is from a “Salute to the Hockey Stars” series they put out. Not sure what year it is, but I think I got it around 10 years ago. It’s a great looking pin except they have Orr as a right handed shot rather than left handed.

Thanks for checking out my Orr pin collection. Come back next week for more of Bobby Orr.

Since I started this blog back in January I’ve showcased some of my favorite Bobby Orr items. A few that come to mind are the giant puzzle, game used sticks, and of course the lemonade cans. What they all had in common was that they were tough to come by and expensive to purchase.

That being said, one of my other all time favorite Orr items that I have in my collection only cost me $2 and had to be colored in.

So why is this one of my favorites? Because whenever I look at it, I’m instantly transported back to when I was 5 years old and sitting on the floor coloring this particular picture. You see, I had this item as a kid.

Without further ado, I present the color by number Bobby Orr.

This is not the one that I had as a kid. That one was thrown out long ago. I got this off of Ebay a few years ago after searching for it for quite some time.

These were sold in the 70’s as part of a package of between 10 and 20 if memory serves me. Each NHL team was represented and a particular scene from a game was shown. Each part of the picture had a number on it corresponding to a colored pencil.

I remember spending hours coloring in each picture and looking at the action taking place. It didn’t even matter to me that they had Orr holding the stick as a right handed shot when he was actually a left handed shot.

Here’s another picture.

This one features Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge of the Bruins along with who appears to be Gump Worsley of the Rangers.

I know this doesn’t seem like the most exciting Orr collectible and some might think that it isn’t even one at all, but I consider it one (albeit an oddball piece) as Orr is depicted in the picture.

If you are a Bruins fan and like to color, you could always buy this.

The official Bruins coloring book was put out in 1972 by T.J.B. Enterprises and featured portraits and action shots of just about the entire team that you could have colored in.

Here’s one of the Orr pictures.

I got this book a few years ago and it was never colored in. The pictures that they used were taken directly from yearbook photos.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for looking at some oddball Orr items. Check back in next week to see what other Bobby Orr collectibles I have.

I was having a tough time this week deciding what Bobby Orr item(s) to showcase from my collection. Nothing was really jumping out at me until I started looking at magazine covers that feature Orr on them. A majority of the time these are either Bruins publications, magazines about hockey in general (like Hockey World or Hockey Illustrated) or magazines that the NHL publishes for sale in arenas. One of these covers caught my eye because it was a Buffalo Sabres program. That got me thinking about what other NHL teams used a picture of Orr to promote a game instead of one of their own players. This week’s post will feature such items.

Before we get to the magazines let’s take a look at some other promotional items.

Here we have a combined Los Angeles Kings and Lakers schedule from 1974. Orr was and had been the best player and probably most recognizable face in the NHL for a number of years by this time. Although the schedule was given out for free, I’m sure the Kings thought more people would take one if they saw Orr. In fact, Orr was so popular, the Kings also used the same picture for their media guide that year.

Next up is this unusual and hard to fine item.

This is a program from a Bruins pre-season game against the New York Rangers in 1971. The game was played in Kitchener, Ontario, which was the home of one of the Rangers minor league teams. Again, a picture of a young Orr is used to promote the game rather than that of a Rangers player.

This promotional photo was given out by the now defunct California Golden Seals sometime in the early 70’s. You can see their team logo at the bottom left.

Now for some magazines that were sold at the games themselves and the teams that sold them.

Montreal Canadiens

Atlanta Flames

Detroit Red Wings

Buffalo Sabres

And finally two different Vancouver Canucks game programs

This weeks lesson is that if you have a favorite player and collect his memorabilia, be sure to look for items not only sold by his own team, but sometimes by other teams in the league.

Thanks for checking in with me this week and be sure to come back next weekend for more great Bobby Orr items.

Usually when I pick an Orr item from my collection to write about I just look around and see what catches my eye. This week however I got a special request from someone who has seen my collection. So this post is for Pat M.

When I began to seriously start collecting Bobby Orr and Bruins memorabilia in general around 15 years ago, one of the things I most wanted was a game used item of Orr’s, specifically a  jersey. I quickly realized that I would probably have to spend somewhere around $100,000 to get one. Realizing that unless I won the lottery that probably wouldn’t happen, I set my sights a little lower.

Much more affordable and obtainable was a game used stick. It still took me about 10 years to get not one, but two of his sticks. In the meantime, I decided to start a collection of game used sticks by members of the Bruins Stanley Cup teams in 1970 and 1972.  This weeks post will feature not only the Orr sticks in my collection, but some of the others I have, as well how I display them.

Before I get to the Orr sticks let’s take a look at a few others.

First up is a stick used by goalie Gerry Cheevers sometime in the late 70’s. It shows great game use on the blade, where the tape has been torn off. I got him to autograph for me a few years back.

Some of you may be asking how I know it is his stick. Well, I know this because all sticks are stamped with the players last name and number on it. The Cheevers stick is very faint so I didn’t bother to take a picture of it. Look at the next set of sticks though.

From left to right we have Derek Sanderson, Phil Esposito and Ken Hodge sticks. The Sanderson stick is from his rookie year in 1967. Espo’s is from the early 70’s and Hodge from around ‘73 or ‘74.

You can clearly see the name stamp and number of each player in this photo (except for Espo, which is again very faint, but it’s there). Sanderson’s name is stamped in the middle of the stick while his number 16 is on top.

One of the things I love about these old sticks is how each player would curve the blade.

Hockey rules today restrict how much a blade can be curved. As you can see, no such restrictions were in place back in the 60’s and 70’s.

Now for Bobby’s sticks.

Orr used Northland sticks for the first few years of his career before switching to Victoriaville. Judging by the lettering of the sticks, they look to be from 1972 to 1975. The top sticks blade is cracked and their appears to have been tape on the blade at some point. Orr usually played with either one single strip of tape or none at all.

Orr always taped the handle of his sticks the same way. Other players would have a big knob of tape at the top of the stick but Bobby’s was always skinny. In case you were wondering, as far as I know there is no significance to one of the stamps being red and the other black.

The Orr sticks are by far the most valuable of all of them. A complete game used Orr stick will cost you a minimum of $1000. His early Northland sticks go for much more.  

Besides these sticks, I have about 25 others, which include most of the key members of the 70 and 72 Stanley Cup Champions, as well as some later 70’s Bruins such as Gilles Gilbert, Brad Park, Bobby Schmautz and Jean Ratelle.

The last thing I want to show you is how I display the sticks.

My incredibly talented friend Bob made this for me. The two sides are made of wood and shaped like the Stanley Cup. They are attached by a hockey stick with hollowed out pucks that act as a buffer between the sticks. It’s also on wheels so that it is easy to move. It’s simply a thing of beauty.

Here’s a better shot of it. I had 2 plaques made up for each side. One list the members of the 70 team and the other the 72 team.  Making this rack took a lot of time, energy and patience, so a big thank you goes out to Bob for designing it and giving me a way to display all my sticks.

Hope you all enjoyed this weeks look at some games used items. Be sure to check back in next week for more of Orr.

One of the things that I loved doing as a kid in the 70’s was to play street hockey. Pretty much everyday in the fall and winter I would get home from school, change my clothes and head outside with my stick and a tennis ball. The only equipment that was needed was usually for the goalie. A set of Mylar pads, a glove and a chest protector was all that was needed.

During this time Bobby Orr was the biggest hockey star in the world and had many endorsement deals. Therefore it made sense that he would have his own line of hockey equipment.

This weeks post is all about some of that equipment, both for ice and street hockey, that was made by Rally.

Let’s start with some skates.

These are a basic pair of black skates. However, they also came in different colors. Here’s a pair of yellow skates.

I believe that they also came in blue and brown. Not sure as to why all the different colors, except maybe the company thought colorful skates would appeal to more kids.

Rally also covered their bases in case you didn’t play hockey.

Here is a pair of roller skates that I imagine kids wore when playing street hockey. I personally just wore sneakers, but it would have been interesting playing with these on.

Now let’s look at some equipment.

Here we have some shin pads, gloves and a helmet. The pads and gloves look pretty ancient when compared to the equipment that is used today. The helmet, which is a kids size, looks like it offers hardly any protection at all. A kid would never be allowed to wear that today, especially with the opening at the top. It would be considered too dangerous.

Moving on, here are some street hockey items.

This is a street hockey ball still in its original packaging. Like the skates, it came in different colors. Besides the ball, Rally also made a more standard hockey puck to be used on the street.

Of course, you can’t play hockey without a stick.

Here we have  the Bobby Orr Rally street hockey stick. The shaft of the stick is just wood but the blade is made of polyurethane and attaches to the shaft by a screw. I have heard that there are 4 different colored blades for the stick. Besides white and blue, there is black and red blades also. The white and black blades are the most common.  

Other hockey and street hockey items that Rally sold with Orr’s name on it include hockey tape, should pads and hockey pant suspenders among other things.

Thanks for reading this weeks post about Bobby Orr Rally equipment. Check back in next week for more of Orr.

Those of you who know me know that I have a lot of stuff. A LOT of stuff. I save things that the normal person throws out. For instance, ticket stubs. But not just ticket stubs from sporting events. I have stubs from movies I went to 25 years ago. I know I know, throw them out. Maybe one day I will.

This week however, I have some Bobby Orr tickets to show you starting this this one.

What we have here is an unused ticket from 1994-95, which was the last season the Bruins played in the Boston Garden before it was torn down. All 41 home games featured a different former Bruin on the ticket. Orr’s ticket was for home game #4 (naturally) against the Canadiens.

For the next ticket we stick with the Canadiens.

This is a ticket for a Canadiens home game against the Bruins in 2006 that features a nice picture of Orr ready to shoot against Montreal goalie Ken Dryden. The Canadiens were building up to their centennial celebration, and like the Bruins, they featured star players as well as their biggest rivals on their tickets.  

Coincidentally, the next ticket also feature Ken Dryden.

This ticket is for a Knights of Pythias (a Canadien version of the Shriners I guess) banquet in 1972 honoring its athlete of the year Ken Dryden. If you look at the bottom row, fourth from the left, you will see a picture of  Orr as he was the honory in 1969.  Some other hockey greats on the ticket who were honored previously include Doug Harvey, Jean Beliveau, Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull.

Now for something a little more recent.

This ticket stub is from Bobby Orr Night in Oshawa in 2008. Orr played minor league hockey for the Oshawa Generals from 1962 – 1966. The team retired his number (he wore #2 there) on this night. The ticket itself is very colorful and has a nice picture of Orr during his final season with the team as there 17 year old captain.

Last up is a ticket which I just got this past Friday.

This ticket from a 1969 charity event in Billerica is one that I have never seen before. On my lunch break from work  Friday I walked up to a small card/coin store a few blocks from my office. They had a few Orr items displayed, but they were all things that I already had. Just as I was leaving I asked the two guys behind the counter if they had any other Orr items. One of the guys pulled this ticket from the desk.

Finding an oddball Orr collectible like this is like finding a needle in a haystack. I can’t imagine that too many of these tickets are floating around out there. It’s not in mint condition, but it’s still very displayable. This is the type of Orr item that I really enjoy collecting most. Not mass produced and not meant to be saved. It’s always exciting to come across somthing like this that I never knew existed.

See you again next week with more of Bobby Orr!

In last week’s post, I showcased some Russian Bobby Orr items in my collection. In keeping with the theme of Orr foreign collectibles, let’s look at some other items that were produced in Sweden, Australia and Finland respectfully.

Up first we head to Sweden.

Released to coincide with the 1972 – 73 season, this is one of the most difficult Orr cards to find. Also known as the Williams Forlags Swedish sticker, there are only a few professionally graded examples of this sticker on record. 

The back of the sticker of course is mostly in Swedish and I have no idea what it says.

There is another very similar Swedish sticker that was made around the same time.

It looks like the exact same picture except it’s more of a head shot.

Next is this magazine.

From 1973, this also features Phil Esposito on the cover. The inside has a whole lot of articles on NHL players as well as updates on Swedish hockey stars.

Now we move on to this Swedish book.

The book, which came out in the early 70’s, features pictures and short write-ups of then NHL stars. It has a soft cover amd measures only 8 x 8.

Now leaving Sweden, we head down under for the next Orr collectible.

This is a 1978 Sanitarium Health Food card. It’s part of a 20 card set entitled “Looking at Canada”.  Besides Orr, the card features Bruins goalie Gerry Cheevers and forward Johnny McKenzie.

Our final destination is Finland and this card.

This is my favorite card of all the foreign items. The stars as a border coupled with the Canadian flag make this look really sharp.

Here’s what the back of the card looks like.

As you can see, the popularity of Bobby Orr (and other NHL players) stretched out across the globe in the 1970’s.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks look into Orr collectibles. Check back next week for more of Orr.

Happy 4th of July to all my readers. On this day when we celebrate America’s independence and freedom, I’m choosing instead to talk about Russia and Bobby Orr.

First off, Bobby is a true blood Canadian through and through who just happened to make his living playing hockey in the United States. So how does Russia come into play? Simple. As the greatest hockey player ever, it’s only natural that the former Soviet Union would have a few items of Orr memorabilia, seeing as how they were a hockey powerhouse for decades and have sent many players to the NHL in recent years.

The Orr items I’m showcasing this week all come directly from Russia.

Up first is this oversized trading card.

This is printed on heavy cardboard stock and measure 8 1/2 x 11 1/2. I believe this is from a set of similar type cards that featured both NHL and Russian hockey stars.

For the next piece of memorabilia I hope you can read Russian.

This is the Russian version of Bobby’s book “My Game”, which was first published in Noth America in 1974.

Here is the North American version.

The Russian book came out in 1981 and only the title page is written in English (it is also in Russian). I scanned a similar page in both books so that you can see how it looks. This is Bobby demonstrating and talking about how he shoots a wrist shot.

First in English.

Now in Russian.

The last item is very rare and one that I didn’t even know existed until a few months ago.

This is a 1972 Team Canada roster picture that was sold in Moscow during the last 4 games of the Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what that was, it was an historic 8 game series in 1972 pitting the best Canadian players in the NHL against the Soviet National Team. The first 4 games were played in various cities in Canada and the last 4 were in Moscow. Team Canada prevailed 4 games to 3 with 1 tie.

Although Bobby is on the roster, he didn’t play due to having knee sugery prior to the series. This picture card was sold in addition to actual game programs, which are much more common to find. The size of this piece is roughly 5 x 7 and the price to buy this at the arena was 85 kopeks (.85 cents).

As always thanks for reading. Have a great holiday and be sure to check back next weekend for more great Orr items.