Contest? Contest.

If you plunked down your nickel on a pack of cards 50 years ago, this is what they’d have looked like.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, outright idea theft should be the greatest praise imaginable.  As such, I’m holding the inaugural Diamond Cuts and Wax Stains “Who the (expletive deleted) is that?” contest, borrowed extremely liberally from Al at Hockey Kazi.

The premise is this: I have a person in mind.  At some semi-random interval (things are busy – I can’t guarantee frequency), I will post a clue to the person’s identity as well as a card.  The first person to correctly guess the identity will win the card posted that day as well as all the other contest cards posted to date.  I’m basically taking Kazi’s contest but making the prize pack incremental (though if it gets beyond about 5 clues/cards, then the name is clearly too obscure and I’ll scrub it and start all over).  The person’s sport will be indicated by the cards I’m posting.  I won’t be looking for a baseball player and posting hockey.

I’ve also been working through the notion of some form of vintage break – not dead clear yet on how this will come to pass, so I’m open to ideas.

Today’s card is a 1962-63 Topps #12 – Murray Oliver.  This is a very nice card that I accidentally bought twice.  This particular one has great corners and gloss though I think the cut is a tad off (bottom edge).  Like 1979-80, the blue border shows scuffs and dings really easy, so to get one with blue corners is nice.

Today’s clue: I was an excellent offensive player who spent almost my entire career with horrid teams.

So who the (expletive deleted) is that?  🙂

If a kid in 1962 (or early 1963) ever wondered what hockey might be like in 50 years, I doubt he/she would have dreamed that there would be so much money in the system that we simply wouldn’t be able to play at all.