Wayne Gretzky鈥檚 name appears at No. 1 an astounding 60 times in the NHL鈥檚 record book.
More than two decades after retiring, The Great One set another high-water mark early Friday morning.
A mint condition 1979 O-Pee-Chee Gretzky rookie card became hockey鈥檚 first to cost more than US$1 million when it fetched $1.29 million at auction.
Dallas-based Heritage Auctions says the trading card is just one of two featuring No. 99 from O-Pee-Chee鈥檚 1979 run to get a perfect 鈥済em mint鈥 score from the Professional Sports Authenticator grading service.
That鈥檚 out of the 5,711 Gretzky cards the PSA evaluated. By comparison, there are more than 300 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie cards with the same 鈥済em mint鈥 rating.
In the description of the Gretzky collectible on its website, Heritage Auctions says it鈥檚 extremely rare to find one in perfect condition because of how cards were cut from the original sheets back in the 1970s.
According to the auction house, O-Pee-Chee, which was essentially the Canadian arm of U.S.-based Topps, 鈥渦sed wire rather than blades to segregate individual cards from their printed sheets, creating a problem that was progressively compounded as the wire dulled from use. Eventually, the cards would suffer cuts as jagged as those on Terry Sawchuk鈥檚 face.鈥
The $1.29 million price tag includes a 20 per cent buyer鈥檚 premium.
Gretzky retired from the NHL in 1999 with a record 894 goals, 1,963 assists and 2,857 points.
The Canadian Press
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