Hockey as a game was conceptualized and played as early as 1875. But, formally, the NHL and its teams were established only in 1917. Next to baseball, the game of hockey grew quickly, a fanbase was created and started relating with its players. Taking full advantage of the situation, companies like Champ’s Cigarettes started giving player cards of the leading hockey players as freebies with their products. This resulted in two things, firstly increased profits for the company because of the increase in sales, and secondly, and most importantly, the hobby of hockey card collecting was born! However, the cards printed were few in number. Hockey cards also went out of production during the First World War and hence the hockey cards produced during this period are hard to find, rare and very valuable.

Along with Champ’s cigarette company, a leading Canadian candy manufacturer, O-Pee-Chee also started promoting their products by giving away free hockey player cards with their candies. However, this production was stopped during the Second World War and it was not until the beginning of the 1950’s that production of hockey player cards came into full swing. At that point, the first real hockey card collectors began their collections. Today, hockey card collecting is now a multi million dollar industry.

Cards printed during this early period, like the Billy Coutu cards, have become holy grails for any collector’s card collection. However, today vintage cards mean and include cards printed after the 50s and include mostly the players and the game statistics sometime during the early 70s. This is because, the earlier cards are either lost or, given their rarity, are untraceable. It was during the 1970s that the leading sports card manufacturer Topps, came into the picture and started producing hockey player cards. It was only after their entry into the hockey player cards market that the industry starting booming into what is presently known as the million dollar industry. Later on, companies like Score, Proset and Upper Deck started manufacturing hockey player cards and they have become quite popular with the public.

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After your initiate the search by entering in a hockey player name and, optionally, the hockey card year, HockeyCardChase.com will display search results for you. Typically, results will have prices and values, some will display the vintage hockey card you searched for.

On the left column of the results is a list of hockey card dealers and retailers of sports cards. The right side of the page will show the results of your hockey card search.

To see dealer results of old hockey cards, click on the name of the online sports card retailer. The hockey player search that you initiated will be displayed from the dealer’s website. Click on the next hockey card dealer if there are no matching player cards. For any match, the hockey card will be displayed in the right column of the results page. Usually a price or value will be displayed with the player card, but not always.

If you find a hockey player card that interests you, click on the image or link to the hockey card. The page will refresh and take you to the dealer site to purchase the hockey card or to send an email for more information.

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HockeyCardChase.com is finished with the initial beta of the site. Whether you are searching for old Gordie Howe cards or Wayne Gretzky or Joe Sakic cards, the search engine for hockey cards is now working. Player cards with values and prices are being displayed in the search results. Sports card dealers and online hockey card retail shops are stored in the database and showing up in the results.

With the close of beta, we will now be posting blog entries centered around hockey cards and the hobby of collecting sports cards. Please feel free to write us with your suggestions by clicking on the contact us page.

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Welcome to the Beta Launch of HockeyCardChase.com. Today marks the official opening of our beta site.

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Collecting hockey player cards is an age old hobby that began way back in 1910, when the first set of hockey player cards were manufactured. However, because of the two World Wars and the resulting shortage of sports card manufacturing material, fewer cards were manufactured and this resulted in scarcity as well as loss of original cards. Companies did come up with newer versions of old cards and these have formed great collectibles today. These cards now fetch very high prices in the market and are treated as gold in hockey card collectibles.

The hobby of collecting hockey player cards is, however, slightly different from collecting other sports cards. Where the player is the most important aspect in the other games, in hockey, the player and the team are rated together. Even if a player were good, his value would largely depend on the performance of the entire team. Hence, if you want a true assessment on the value of a hockey card, then you should assess the performance of the entire team and this helps determine the need for the player’s card. Unlike other games where the value of rookie card is dependent on player, in hockey rookie cards, value depends on both player performance as well as the team. In hockey card collecting, both the team and the individual player are given equal importance. I’m not sure why this is so, perhaps due to the fact that there aren’t as many big name stars in the early years as today.

Along with the team’s performance, the year the player and his team had also plays a role in determining the value of a card. In other words, if the year of manufacture of the card symbolizes a great season for the player, then its value increases. Milestones achieved by the player impacts the value of his card. You should also pay attention to the details of the card itself, whether it has a hologram or it is an autographed card or it has other inserts, this will help determine its value and all this needs thorough research on the part of hockey card collector.

Lastly of course, proper research by asking around and verifying price guides will help determine the real value of the card. Experts in the field of collecting hockey player cards are a good resource along with leading price guides like Beckett and Tuffstuff. Finally, use the the global online marketplace found on the Internet to gauge the value of your hockey cards.

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