Card of the Day: 1971 O-Pee-Chee #148 Guy Lafleur RC
Look at the bottom of the card. It reads GUY LA FLEUR — two words. O-Pee-Chee misspelled the name of the man who would become one of the greatest Canadiens of his generation, on his rookie card, and never fixed it. PSA's own listing for this card carries the misspelling in its title.
The card above is cert 90193840, a PSA MINT 9 — one of 62 that exist at that grade.
A Rookie Card for a Number One Pick
Montreal took Lafleur first overall in the 1971 NHL Amateur Draft, and O-Pee-Chee put him at #148 in its 1971-72 set: a yellow oval on a cream border, CANADIENS in fat purple letters arcing over the top, the CH crest in the corner, and a 20-year-old in the red sweater holding his stick across his body.
The card lists him at CENTER, the position he played in junior; in Montreal he became a right wing. Five Stanley Cups, the Hall of Fame in 1988, and a stretch of dominance in the late 1970s turned the misspelling on this card into a permanent joke at O-Pee-Chee's expense.
PSA Population Report
| PSA Grade | Population | Value |
|---|---|---|
| PSA 10 | 6 | — |
| PSA 9 | 62 | $1,300 |
| PSA 8 | 278 | $450 |
| Total Graded (All Grades) | 2,185 | — |
* Population data as of August 13, 2026. PSA's Price Guide lists no value at GEM-MT 10.
Why the Total Is the Number to Look At
Most of the cards we feature have five-figure total populations. This one has 2,185. That is the whole story of O-Pee-Chee: a Canadian print run for a Canadian market, produced in a fraction of the quantity of its American contemporaries, and surviving in far smaller numbers.
Six PSA 10s out of 2,185 works out to a gem rate of about a quarter of one percent. The reason is manufacturing. O-Pee-Chee's cuts were rough, its centering was erratic, and that cream border frames every flaw the production process introduced — a card can be perfectly preserved and still be cut crooked from the day it left the factory.
Where the Money Sits
The PSA 9 carries a $1,300 Price Guide value against $450 at PSA 8 — a shade under three times for one grade point, which by vintage standards is remarkably gentle. Compare it to the 1988 Fleer Pippen from yesterday's CASE #0243, where the 9-to-10 step was nearly fourteen times.
The 10 has no Price Guide value at all. With six copies known, PSA has nothing to price it against — the same situation as the 1969 Reggie Jackson in CASE #0240, where the population was one.
* The PSA 8 at $450 is the accessible slot here: a Hall of Fame rookie, a famous printing error, and a total population smaller than the PSA 9 count on plenty of vintage baseball cards.
Verdict: misdemeanor. They spelled his name wrong, filed him at the position he was about to leave behind, and barely two thousand copies have ever been graded — and it is still one of the most beautiful hockey rookie cards ever made.
