1988/89 Topps Hockey

In March of 2023, I hit a card show with my friend Arron and we had a pretty nice three-sport find: a dealer had eight 3200-count boxes for $10 each or take the whole group for $60. I asked him about it and he said it was mostly late 80s to mid 90s junk era stuff, mixed between baseball, basketball, and hockey. At that point he didn't want to load it back in his truck so he was willing to take $40. So Arron and I split it. It turned out better than we expected: loads of TTM-able stuff, additions to some unsigned sets I was working on, two signed cards, two Derek Jeter RCs, a small amount of vintage, plus a bunch of stuff for players he collects.

In the hockey box was a starter set of 1988-89 Topps hockey. A 198 card set, there were a good 120 in there-- unsigned, but still very TTM-worthy. My friend Lee asked if I was going to try to complete it signed. At first I thought hell no, I'm already swamped in projects. But considering how many of them sign, how few are deceased (eight or so), and how small the set is, meh, sure, why not?

It's one of my favorite designs with the iconic thumbtack, which I used occasionally in making some minor league baseball custom 4x6 photos. It'll be tough to complete with Gretzky's well-known reluctance to sign his card, RC's of Hall of Fame members Joe Nieuwendyk, Brett Hull, and Brendan Shanahan, should-be Hall of Famer Pierre Turgeon and the late great Bob Probert, but it'll be fun to work on.

#     Name                                                             How Acquired                                                                               

1 Mario Lemieux

2 Bob Joyce

3 Joel Quenneville

4 Tony McKegney

5 Stephane Richer

6 Mark Howe

7 Brent Sutter

8 Gilles Meloche TTM, November 2020

9 Jimmy Carson

10 John MacLean

11 Gary Leeman

12 Gerard Gallant

13 Marcel Dionne

14 Dave Christian

15 Gary Nylund

16 Joe Nieuwendyk

17 Billy Smith

18 Christian Ruuttu

19 Randy Cunneyworth

20 Brian Lawton

21 Scott Mellanby

22 Peter Stastny

23 Gord Kluzak

24 Sylvain Turgeon

25 Clint Malarchuk

26 Denis Savard

27 Craig Simpson

28 Petr Klima

29 Pat Verbeek

30 Moe Mantha

31 Chris Nilan TTM, April 2021

32 Barry Pederson

33 Randy Burridge

34 Ron Hextall

35 Gaston Gingras

36 Kevin Dineen

37 Tom Laidlaw

38 Paul MacLean

39 John Chabot

40 Lindy Ruff IP, September 2014

41 Dan Quinn

42 Don Beaupre

43 Gary Suter

44 Mikko Makela

45 Mark Johnson

46 Dave Taylor

47 Ulf Dahlen

48 Jeff Sharples

49 Chris Chelios

50 Mike Gartner

51 Darren Pang IP, June 2018

52 Ron Francis

53 Ken Morrow

54 Michel Goulet

55 Ray Sheppard

56 Doug Gilmour

57 David Shaw

58 Cam Neely

59 Grant Fuhr

60 Scott Stevens

61 Bob Brooke

62 Dave Hunter

63 Alan Kerr

64 Brad Marsh

65 Dale Hawerchuk

66 Brett Hull

67 Patrik Sundstrom

68 Greg Stefan

69 James Patrick ***HAVE OPC VERSION***

70 Dale Hunter

71 Al Iafrate

72 Bobby Carpenter

73 Ray Bourque

74 John Tucker

75 Carey Wilson

76 Joe Mullen

77 Rick Vaive

78 Shawn Burr

79 Murray Craven

80 Clark Gillies

81 Bernie Federko

82 Tony Tanti

83 Greg Gilbert

84 Kirk Muller

85 Dave Tippett

86 Kevin Hatcher

87 Rick Middleton

88 Bobby Smith

89 Doug Wilson Trade

90 Scott Arniel

91 Brian Mullen

92 Mike O'Connell

93 Mark Messier

94 Sean Burke

95 Brian Bellows

96 Doug Bodger

97 Bryan Trottier

98 Anton Stastny

99 Checklist

100 Dave Poulin

101 Bob Bourne

102 John Vanbiesbrouck

103 Allen Pedersen

104 Mike Ridley

105 Andrew McBain

106 Troy Murray

107 Tom Barrasso

108 Tomas Jonsson

109 Rob Brown

110 Hakan Loob

111 Ilkka Sinisalo

112 Dave Archibald

113 Doug Halward

114 Ray Ferraro

115 Doug Brown

116 Patrick Roy

117 Greg Millen

118 Ken Linseman Trade, Russ Crowell, March 2015

119 Phil Housley

120 Wayne Gretzky

121 Tomas Sandstrom

122 Brendan Shanahan

123 Pat LaFontaine

124 Luc Robitaille

125 Ed Olczyk

126 Ron Sutter

127 Mike Liut

128 Brent Ashton

129 Tony Hrkac

130 Kelly Miller

131 Alan Haworth

132 Dave McLlwain

133 Mike Ramsey

134 Bob Sweeney

135 Dirk Graham ***HAVE OPC VERSION***

136 Ulf Samuelsson

137 Petri Skriko

138 Aaron Broten

139 Jim Fox

140 Randy Wood

141 Larry Murphy

142 Daniel Berthiaume

143 Kelly Kisio

144 Neal Broten

145 Reed Larson

146 Peter Zezel

147 Jari Kurri

148 Jim Johnson

149 Gino Cavallini

150 Glen Hanlon

151 Bengt Gustafsson

152 Mike Bullard

153 John Ogrodnick

154 Steve Larmer

155 Kelly Hrudey

156 Mats Naslund

157 Bruce Driver

158 Randy Hillier

159 Craig Hartsburg

160 Rollie Melanson

161 Adam Oates

162 Greg Adams

163 Dave Andreychuk

164 Dave Babych

165 Brian Noonan

166 Glen Wesley

167 Dave Ellett

168 Brian Propp

169 Bernie Nicholls

170 Walt Poddubny

171 Steve Konroyd

172 Doug Sulliman

173 Mario Gosselin

174 Brian Benning

175 Dino Ciccarelli

176 Steve Kasper

177 Rick Tocchet

178 Brad McCrimmon

179 Paul Coffey

180 Pete Peeters

181 Bob Probert

182 Steve Duchesne

183 Russ Courtnall

184 Mike Foligno

185 Wayne Presley

186 Reggie Lemelin

187 Mark Hunter

188 Joe Cirella

189 Glenn Anderson

190 John Anderson

191 Patrick Flatley

192 Rod Langway

193 Brian MacLellan

194 Pierre Turgeon

195 Brian Hayward

196 Steve Yzerman

197 Doug Crossman

198 Checklist