Trading card fever hits Winnipeg: rare cards could be worth thousands

WINNIPEG (CityNews) – Trading cards of all sorts have seen a boom in interest since the start of the pandemic. With celebrities and YouTubers among some of those getting involved, having a rare card could lead to a big payout.

After seeing a Wayne Gretzky rookie hockey card sell for $1.2-million at an auction, Winnipeggers are seeing if their rare and older hockey cards are worth more.

One card owned by Frank Hunt is a Bobby Orr rookie card.

The card, which is rated 10-out-of-10 and is in mint condition, could very easily be worth over a million dollars.

According to Hunt, he owns the only Orr rookie card with the rating and he keeps it locked up along with hundreds of thousands of other ultra rare collector cards.

Hunt isn’t the only one with a Bobby Orr rookie card, though. Kasandra Leafloor and Daley Peters have their own from 1966.

“We’ve known it’s existed for a long time, we just haven’t really done anything with it,” they explained.

“[There’s] no major creases in it, which is nice because if you get a major crease in the card it drops to a one, basically. Having looked it all over, I feel–because a little bit of the centering the print mark, little bit on the edges and the corners—it’s probably going to be a four,” Hunt said about the card owned by Leafloor and Peters.

The difference between Hunt’s 10-out-of-10 and Leafloor and Peter’s four-out-of-10 card lies in small details: in how the card was printed and how it was kept.

The brown border on the Orr rookie card is what makes or breaks the rating. Frank’s is tight and crispy with no white showing through. The other card is scratched and the corners are rounded.

While the four-rated card isn’t worth a million dollars, Hunt says Leafloor and Peters can still make a really good profit from the card.

“Fours and fives, they are selling somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10,000-14,000.”

Hunt’s estimate isn’t far off from what is on sites like eBay. One 5-rated card is listed around $7,000.

One card in near-mint condition is listed around $95,000.

It is not yet known if Hunt will be selling his Bobby Orr card or even if it will sell for more than $1.2-million. However, one thing that is known is the card is worth way more than its weight in gold.