PSA Set Registry
PSA Set Registry Starter Kit
Mario Lemieux Prospect Set
By Terry Melia
The 2019-2020 NHL season is in full swing and perennial contenders like Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington and Pittsburgh are once again taking hold of the Eastern Conference standings. With countless pucks lighting up lamps across the league, it's only natural to reminisce about seasons past, some of the legends now retired and where their prospect cards stand today. One superstar from yesteryear worth taking a closer look at is Mario Lemieux, the former Penguins standout center who still reigns supreme in the City of Steel.
"Super Mario," as he came to be known, was the No. 1 overall selection in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft. The Pens watched their new addition not only crack the 100 point plateau (43 goals, 57 assists) in his first season but be awarded the Calder Memorial Trophy as the league's top rookie. From there, the legend of Super Mario only grew. Over the next seven seasons, Lemieux would go on a torrid scoring pace in which he tallied 365 goals to go with 549 assists and, perhaps most importantly, bring back-to-back Stanley Cup championships to Pittsburgh in 1991 and '92. Struggling through injury and ultimately a diagnosis of Hodgkins Lymphoma in early 1993, Lemieux not only fought off cancer but returned to the ice two months later to lead the Pens back to the postseason.
He played a total of 17 NHL seasons (all in Pittsburgh), recorded 43 hat tricks (scoring three goals in a game), retired not once but three times, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1997 following his second departure. In fact, he was just the ninth player in history to have the mandatory three-year waiting period waived. All in all, Lemieux and the Penguins revived the Steel City in the '90s, much like the NFL's Steelers did in the '70s. Let's look at three of the Hall of Famer's five prospect cards with each example graded in PSA NM-MT 8 condition for affordability purposes.
1985 O-Pee-Chee #9
1985 Topps #9
1985 Topps Box-Bottom Hand-Cut "I"
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1985 O-Pee-Chee #9
PSA Population: 1,517 PSA NM-MT 8, 560 PSA MINT 9
Average Cost for PSA 8: $270
Average Cost for PSA 9: $830
This is arguably the most important prospect/rookie card of one of the game's most gifted players. The 6' 4" center is shown on the ice sporting his black Pens uniform and giving a wicked stare back at presumably an opponent who tried checking him. His chin strap is loose, but Lemieux appears ready to go. His name and position ("C") on the bottom appear bold as is the Pens team logo in the top right corner. While tougher to find than its Topps counterpart, the OPC version - printed for the Canadian market and including biographical info in both English and French - is not particularly difficult overall, but marginal centering and slight rough-cuts certainly help prevent many examples from reaching PSA MINT 9 or better. If your card was able to obtain PSA 9 status, its value would triple. And if it was a perfect specimen PSA GEM-MT 10 of which only 48 exist in the PSA Pop Report, it would be a five-figure card.
1985 Topps #9
PSA Population: 1,851 PSA NM-MT 8, 872 PSA MINT 9
Average Cost for PSA 8: $107
Average Cost for PSA 9: $235
The design of Lemieux's 1985 Topps #9 issue is practically the same as its OPC brother, but the print quality of the Topps version was much better, which means it's easier to find in higher grade. That also means it's not worth as much because it's not as scarce. One difference you'll certainly notice, beyond the manufacturers' logos, is that Lemieux's bio information is only printed in English. And while it's more abundant than the OPC card, the Topps example also suffers from poor centering issues. For obvious reasons, the Topps card has a slightly more inflated PSA population report than the OPC, but rest assured, if you were to find a PSA 9 specimen, your card would easily double in value. And if you were lucky enough to earn a PSA 10 rank, it would multiply ten-fold.
1985 Topps Box-Bottom Hand-Cut "I"
PSA Population: 14 PSA NM-MT 8, 6 PSA MINT 9
Average Cost for PSA 8: $400
Average Cost for PSA 9: $1,400
The 1985-86 Topps Box-Bottom Hand-Cut set contains 16 player cards that were presented on each 1985-86 Topps wax-pack box-bottom, four per box. Instead of conventional numbering of the cards, Topps used letters on the card backs ranging from "A" to "P." Going alphabetically, Lemieux's card (ninth out of 16) earned the letter "I" as his differentiator. While the card design closely mirrors that of his regular '85 Topps card #9, the front features a different photo of a young Lemieux, with the Pens logo moving to the top left corner and lastly the border color has changed from white to yellow. Scarcity in high grade is certainly evident here as collectors needed a steady hand when cutting the cards from the box bottoms. There have been exactly 69 of these cards graded by PSA. To date, none of the box-bottom hand-cut cards have earned PSA 10 status.
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Collecting these three featured prospect cards would be a great start toward paying tribute to the nine-time NHL All-Star, six-time Art Ross Trophy winner and three-time Hart Memorial Trophy recipient. All told, in PSA 8 condition, you would need to pony up around $777. While it's not an inexpensive buy-in, it is an important one when your collecting the first-year cardboard of a legendary NHL player.
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