60
games played the back credits him with in 1978-79
PSA describes the 1979-80 Topps back, and O-Pee-Chee's follows the same design with its text in two languages: a dark grey base, with most of the information set inside a large blue ice skate. The card number and the player's vital statistics sit at the top left of the skate, and his name, position and team run along the blade at the bottom.
In the top right corner is a small cartoon with a fact about the player. Across the set these range from college careers and hobbies to whether a player was married, and some of them are genuinely funny. One Sabres player's cartoon called him one of the team's most eligible bachelors. Another reported that a player once wore two different coloured shoes to a hockey banquet.
The statistics sit in the skate, season by season, with a career line at the bottom.
For a card that exists because of one season, the back gets that season wrong.
Gretzky's 1978-79 season was split between the Indianapolis Racers, where he played eight games, and the Edmonton Oilers, where he played 72. That is 80 games, in which he scored 46 goals and 110 points. PSA notes that the back of the card lists him with 60 games for 1978-79, and the same 60 is carried into his career total.
Collectors cataloguing the O-Pee-Chee card have flagged the same figure on the Canadian version. We know of no corrected version, so a genuine copy should carry it.
That is worth knowing for two reasons. It is a small piece of the card's history that most owners never notice. And because it should be on every genuine copy, it is one more detail a counterfeiter working from a front image has to get right.
The quickest test on the back is the language. O-Pee-Chee printed for the Canadian market, so its back carries English and French throughout. The Topps back is English only.
That is how to tell the two printings apart in a second, and it is also a basic authenticity check: a fake made from a photograph of the front has to reproduce the back as a separate job. We covered the other quick checks in the yellow dot and how to spot a fake, and the two printings side by side in O-Pee-Chee against Topps.
The back is also where you see the cardboard itself. O-Pee-Chee stock is brighter than Topps, and it glows noticeably more under a blacklight. A back that looks dull under ultraviolet light is worth a second look on a card claiming to be O-Pee-Chee.
Look at the back's edges too. The O-Pee-Chee cards were cut roughly, and the back shows the same rough edges as the front. We explained why in how the O-Pee-Chee cards came off the sheet.
Some O-Pee-Chee copies carry thin blue lines on the back that are not part of the design. Sellers often call them a sign of a first print run, and nobody at O-Pee-Chee has ever confirmed that. Collectors comparing scans found they run down a whole column of the printed sheet, which points to a flaw on the press rather than a separate printing. We set that out in what the blue lines do and do not mean. They are worth knowing about. They are not worth paying extra for.
Ask for the back. Any serious listing should show it. A seller who will not photograph the back of a card at this price is leaving out half the evidence.
Check the language first. Bilingual means O-Pee-Chee. English only means Topps. Make sure it matches what is being sold.
Find the 60. The 1978-79 line should credit him with 60 games, not 80. On a genuine card, the mistake should be there.
Compare with the certificate. PSA publishes front and back images for many certificates. Match the back you are looking at against the one on file, including its print marks, its edges and any blue lines.
Look at it under ultraviolet light if you have the card in hand. The O-Pee-Chee stock should glow brighter than a Topps.
Sources. The back design, with its dark grey base, blue skate, vitals and name placement, the cartoons and their examples, and the 60 games listed for 1978-79 and in the career total against the 80 he played, are from PSA's Set Registry article on the 1979 Topps hockey set. The same games-played error on the O-Pee-Chee card is noted in the Trading Card Database's entry for 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee #18. His 1978-79 games with Indianapolis and Edmonton are from Gretzky.com, and his 46 goals and 110 points from The Complete World Hockey Association. The bilingual O-Pee-Chee back, the English-only Topps back, and the brighter, more fluorescent O-Pee-Chee stock are from All Vintage Cards. Checked on 18 October 2026.