1951-52 Parkhurst Gordie Howe #66 RC

A candy maker brings hockey cards back

Parkhurst Products, a Toronto company led by George Kennedy, was founded in 1951. It made bubble gum and small picture cards, and its hockey cards came to be known as 'Parkies.' The 1951-52 set was its first, and the first hockey cards produced since 1940, after a gap that left a decade of stars without cardboard. That gap is why the set holds rookie cards for players who had debuted in the 1940s, Gordie Howe and Maurice Richard among them.

The set has 105 cards. Each front carries a color picture with the player's name, team, position, statistics, birth data and card number; the backs are blank. At 1 3/4 by 2 1/2 inches, the cards are much smaller than the cards Parkhurst made from 1953-54 on. A pack cost five cents and held gum and several cards.

Parkhurst went on to issue 12 hockey sets in 13 years, from 1951-52 through 1963-64, and from 1955-56 it covered only the two Canadian teams, Montreal and Toronto. Kennedy left the gum and card trade after 1963-64 for his other business interests. Upper Deck bought the Parkhurst name in 2005 and revived it in 2006.

Mr. Hockey in 1951

Gordon 'Gordie' Howe was born March 31, 1928, in Floral, Saskatchewan. After a season with the Omaha Knights of the United States Hockey League, he joined the Detroit Red Wings in 1946 at 18 and stayed for 25 seasons. In his rookie year, legend has it, Maurice Richard challenged the much bigger Howe with a shove and Howe knocked him out with one punch.

His career nearly ended in the 1950 playoffs, when he missed a check on Toronto's Ted Kennedy, crashed head first into the boards and fractured his skull. He needed surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. He came back to lead the league in scoring in 1950-51 with 43 goals and 86 points, the season whose numbers are printed on this card.

The year the card was issued he was even better. In 1951-52 Howe scored a league-leading 47 goals and 86 points, won the Art Ross and Hart trophies, and made the First All-Star Team. Playing on the Production Line with Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay, he helped Detroit finish first at 44-14-12 and sweep Montreal in the final to win the Stanley Cup on April 15, 1952. Goaltender Terry Sawchuk, whose own rookie card is in the same set, posted four shutouts in eight playoff games. It was the last season the Production Line played together.

Howe played 26 NHL seasons and 32 counting the World Hockey Association, where he skated alongside his sons Mark and Marty and won the league's MVP award in 1974; the award was later renamed for him. He retired after 1979-80 with 801 NHL goals and 1,850 points in 1,767 games, entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972 and died June 10, 2016. He is the only player in NHL history to compete in five different decades.

Guillotines, cement mixers and marbles

How the cards were made explains why so few survive in high grade. According to Bobby Burrell, author of Vintage Hockey Collector, the printer stacked about 20 sheets at a time on a guillotine and sliced them in both directions. The cut cards were then thrown into a cement mixer to shuffle them, while a worker at the other end pulled out damaged cards. Five cards at a time were hand-packed into small cardboard wrappers that came in green, light blue, red and purple.

The paper was fragile, and it fades and browns over time, especially under light. Children flipped the cards and shot marbles with them, and collectors who kept sets often wrapped them in elastic bands, which damaged the cards at the ends of a stack. With blank backs and no album to paste them into, at least the cards escaped glue.

PSA describes the Howe as suffering the issue's typical condition problems and as very elusive in NM-MT 8 or better. A mid-grade copy such as the PSA 5.5 in this entry is what most serious collectors of the card actually own.

What copies have sold for

The card's market spans its whole grading scale. In fall 2024 one PSA 5.5 copy, the grade of this entry, sold at online auction for $9,850 on October 22 and then, under the same certification number, for $10,175 on December 8.

Higher grades have climbed far beyond that. A PSA 8.5 sold at auction for $210,330 on May 24, 2021, and a PSA 8 brought $56,600 three days later. A PSA 7 sold for $36,000 in August 2022, and another for $28,200 that December. A PSA 6 brought $22,800 in July 2022, and a PSA 7.5, one of five at that grade, sold for $33,600 in May 2025.

Earlier prices look small by comparison: an older PSA set registry article reported a PSA 8 Howe rookie bringing $8,383.63 with premium.

Identifying the card

The genuine card is tiny, 1 3/4 by 2 1/2 inches, with a blank back. The front shows color artwork of a young Howe in Detroit Red Wings gear and gives his name as 'Gordon Howe,' with his 1950-51 statistics and the card number 66.

Because of guillotine cutting, many copies are off-center or have rough edges, and fading of the colors is common. Those flaws, rather than any variation, are what separate a mid-grade card from a top one.

The numbers

1951-52 season

70 GP, 47 G, 39 A, 86 PTS, 41 PIM. Led NHL in goals and points; Hart Trophy, Art Ross Trophy, First All-Star Team. Age 23.

1950-51 season (on the card)

70 GP, 43 G, 43 A, 86 PTS, 38 PIM. Art Ross Trophy, First All-Star Team.

1952 Stanley Cup

Detroit 44-14-12 in the regular season, then won the Cup in eight playoff games, sweeping Montreal in the final

NHL career

1,767 GP, 801 G, 1,049 A, 1,850 PTS

WHA career

419 GP, 174 G, 334 A, 508 PTS

Honors

6 Hart Trophies, 6 Art Ross Trophies, 23 NHL All-Star Games, 4 Stanley Cups

Hall of Fame

Inducted 1972

Timeline

1. Mar 31, 1928

   Gordie Howe is born in Floral, Saskatchewan.

2. 1946

   Howe debuts with the Detroit Red Wings at 18.

3. 1950

   Howe fractures his skull in the playoffs against Toronto and needs surgery.

4. 1951

   Parkhurst Products is founded in Toronto.

5. 1951

   Parkhurst issues its first hockey set, 105 cards with Howe as #66, the first hockey cards since 1940.

6. 1951

   Howe wins the 1950-51 scoring title with 86 points, the statistics printed on his card.

7. Apr 15, 1952

   Detroit completes a sweep of Montreal to win the Stanley Cup; Howe is the league MVP and scoring champion.

8. 1964

   Parkhurst ends hockey card production after its 1963-64 set.

9. 1972

   Howe is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

10. 1980

    Howe retires after the 1979-80 season with the Hartford Whalers.

11. 2005

    Upper Deck buys the Parkhurst name.

12. Jun 10, 2016

    Howe dies at 88.

13. May 24, 2021

    A PSA 8.5 copy sells at auction for $210,330.

14. Oct 22, 2024

    A PSA 5.5 copy sells at online auction for $9,850.

15. Dec 8, 2024

    The same PSA 5.5 copy sells again for $10,175.

16. May 23, 2025

    A PSA 7.5 copy sells for $33,600.

The world in 1951

• Apr 22, 1951

  Canadian troops hold off Chinese forces at the Battle of Kapyong in Korea.

• Jun 1, 1951

  The Massey Report on Canadian culture is released.

• Jul 10, 1951

  Canada and Germany sign a formal peace agreement.

• Sep 30, 1951

  Charlotte Whitton becomes mayor of Ottawa, the first woman to lead a major Canadian city.

• Oct 27, 1951

  Cobalt bomb cancer therapy is first tested in London, Ontario; Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh attend a football game in Edmonton.

• Dec 12, 1951

  The St. Lawrence Seaway Authority is established.

Daily price data

FLOAT reprices this card every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.

No completed sale at PSA 5.5 is on record yet. The same card at other grades:

Every grade and recorded sale for this card

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1951-52 Parkhurst Gordie Howe #66 RC is number 68 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (67 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 1951-52 Parkhurst cards were shuffled in a cement mixer before being packed five to a wrapper.
• Howe's card calls him 'Gordon Howe' and prints his statistics from the season before.
• The set was the first hockey card issue since 1940, so it holds rookie cards of stars who had already played for years.
• One PSA 5.5 copy sold twice in seven weeks in 2024, gaining $325 between sales.
• Howe played professional hockey in five different decades, the only player in NHL history to do so.
• The WHA's MVP award, which Howe won in 1974, was renamed the Gordie Howe Trophy two years later.
• Elastic bands wrapped around old sets mean the first and last cards of the set are often found damaged.