Our Pursuit of Mark Messier Collecting Perfection

When the words New York Rangers and Stanley Cup are referred to in the same phrase, the name Mark Messier will almost certainly spring to mind for a good number of hockey devotees. Messier was clearly etched into NHL lore the day he predicted the Rangers would win it all. Essentially it was hockey’s version of Babe Ruth’s famous called shot. He will have his place eternally among the best of the best hockey greats. His stats leave little argument as to this fact.

Since his days with the Edmonton Oilers alongside the Great One, we have watched him win 6 Stanley Cups and pursue his career with a dominance rarely seen before in any other player. As he approached the end of his storied career, my family and I decided that he was to be our player. Our collection, starting with his 1980-81 rookie card, has now grown into a massive card collection that features over 957 cards. We also have plenty of sports memorabilia in our collection, including a game-used jersey, an autographed hockey stick, two dozen autographed cards, and a number of printing plates.

We have had several Messier triumphs over time, with the first one being obtaining the first official card ever made of Mark Messier, his 1979-80 Edmonton Oilers post card. We did not find one of these until 3 years into collecting so it was a long time in coming. We also have managed to find several serial numbered cards of Mark bearing the production serial number 11, with our latest being the 2009-10 Upper Deck Series 2 Game Patch numbered 11/15 bearing a badass quad-color patch. We are also all about those cards with pals Gretz and Mess for a passing fancy card, or the display of Mark’s career milestones or even ones in which he’s pictured with hot young players like Evgeni Malkin and Sydney Crosby.

As our collection has grown, it is increasingly difficult to find a few of the older cards and especially hard finding, not to mention being able to afford, the multitude of his 1/1 cards on the market. Trading with other collectors on the net has become essential in growing our collection to where it’s at today. Generally speaking, Mark Messier cards are nearly always short printed, which also makes the quest more challenging without a doubt. We were happy to hear when he had signed again last year with Upper Deck, full well knowing his oncoming wave of cards may break our budget.

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