Hockey
Hockey Error Cards: What They Sell For
Hockey has some famous error cards, and the numbers on them are a useful warning: two of the best-known sell for exactly what the normal card sells for. The hockey version that really changes a price is not a mistake at all — it is which company printed the card. Here is what each one sold for, and how to tell what you have.
Prices are SportsCardsPro sold-price figures in US dollars, read on September 28, 2026. SportsCardsPro is the sports-card side of PriceCharting.
Same card, two printers: the 1979-80 Gretzky rookie
Wayne Gretzky’s rookie card #18 was printed twice: by Topps, and by O-Pee-Chee, whose version carries an English and French back. Ungraded, they sell for nearly the same — $704.31 for O-Pee-Chee and $733.03 for Topps. Graded, they come apart:
- Graded 8 — O-Pee-Chee $21,368.00, Topps $5,850.00.
- Graded 9 — O-Pee-Chee $73,529.00, Topps $32,534.29.
Why? The O-Pee-Chee is hard to find in top shape. Its blue borders chip, its edges are often rough-cut straight from the pack, and centring is a common problem. PSA has graded 95 O-Pee-Chee copies a 9 and only 2 a 10, against 127 Topps copies at 9. A clean O-Pee-Chee is the scarce card, and collectors pay for it.
Check yours: turn it over. A back with French alongside the English is the O-Pee-Chee. Then look hard at the edges — which is exactly where the next problem comes in.
On the same two pages, ungraded sales in September 2026 include a copy titled “trimmed” that sold for $643.86 and one titled “PSA altered” that sold for $560.00. With a grade worth this much, the edges are the first thing to check. PSA will not give a number to a card it finds trimmed, recoloured, restored or cleaned; it labels it “Authentic Altered”. For a card like this, buy it graded or not at all.
Two famous errors that add nothing
- 1988-89 O-Pee-Chee Kevin Lowe #229 — the card shows Wayne Gretzky’s statistics instead of Lowe’s, and it was never corrected. $1.13 ungraded (on only two recorded sales), against $0.99 for the listing without the error named.
- 1990-91 Pro Set Ray Bourque #1 — his name is misspelled “Borque”, in a set with more than 100 errors. $1.51 ungraded, against $1.52 for the normal listing.
The Lowe card is the clearest case. A mistake that was never fixed is not a version — every copy has it, so it is simply the card. The Bourque prices say the same thing: the misspelled and normal listings sit one cent apart.
A card that was pulled: Jared Aulin
In 2001-02 Upper Deck printed a Young Guns rookie card, #220, for Jared Aulin before he had played an NHL game — against a players’ association rule at the time. Upper Deck replaced it with a Brett Hull throwback Young Guns card, but some Aulin copies still got out. A card that was withdrawn is a different kind of scarce from an error: the question is how many escaped. Our price source has no separate page for it, so we will not put a number on it; if you have one, look up recent sales of that exact card and number before you list it.
What to take from hockey
- Check who printed it. O-Pee-Chee and Topps versions of the same card can price very differently, especially graded.
- A never-fixed mistake is just the card. Do not pay extra for an “error” every copy has.
- The more a grade is worth, the harder you check the edges. A trimmed card cannot get a number from PSA.
For planned versions — parallels, numbered cards and Young Guns — see hockey card parallels and Young Guns. For a full checklist on any card, see card errors and variations: how to spot them.
What this looks like on Waffles
Every hockey pack we sell is four real cards we physically hold, and the value we show for each card carries the date it was last set — so you can check any card you pull against a price guide yourself. See what is in the hockey packs right now and the published odds.