After two years with the Hamilton Tigers, Malone refused to attend the team's training camp in 1922, and was sent back to Montreal for two final years as a substitute with the Canadiens. The team won the Stanley Cup (and Malon's third) during his final NHL season in 1923-24.
He is featured as card #13 in the 1923-24 V14-1 William
Paterson set. Mine is a PSA 2.5.
The 40 blank-back cards represent the four teams of the NHL at the time: Ottawa Senators, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto St. Patricks and Hamilton Tigers.
The 40 blank-back cards represent the four teams of the NHL at the time: Ottawa Senators, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto St. Patricks and Hamilton Tigers.
Although there is no indication as to who produced the cards,
the accepted theory is that Canadian confectioner William Patterson, Ltd.
issued it. A single card was included with the purchase of a "Paterson
League Hockey Bar," whose wrapper stated:
...for the complete set — 40 different players — we
will send you prepaid a handsome pair of hockey skates. We will return the set
of cards to you with the skates.
The company had no strong desire to ship free hockey
skates all over Canada so a single card was intentionally short printed. This
fact makes card #25 of Toronto defenseman Bert Corbeau on of the rarest and
expensive hockey cards. There have only been five of the William Paterson
Corbeau cards submitted to PSA, and none have been graded higher than PSA 2.
This isn't surprising since anyone lucky enough to pull a Corbeau and collect
the other 39 cards to finish the set, would have redeemed the cards for the
skates and had them returned with a cancellation hold punch.
The exceedingly rare William Paterson Corbeau card is ghost-like
and a legend among hockey card collectors. But the legendary Phantom Joe Malone
was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1950 and is still the only player in NHL
history to score seven goals in a single game.
