What Is a Parkhurst Card?

Parkhurst refers to two distinct eras of hockey cards under the same name. The original Parkhurst Products was a Toronto candy company that printed the first major hockey card set since before World War II in 1951-52, and kept producing sets through 1963-64 — twelve sets in all, including the famous 1951-52 Gordie Howe rookie. After decades dormant, the name resurfaced in the early 2000s and landed with Upper Deck, which released 2005-06 Upper Deck Parkhurst Hockey as an affordable, retro-styled set aimed at set builders rather than high-end chasers. Modern Parkhurst has run in various physical and digital formats since, most recently returning to a traditional hobby/retail release for its 75th-anniversary year, tying back to that original 1951 set.

• A confectionery company, not a card company. Parkhurst Products made candy and gum in Toronto and used cards as a pack insert, the same model Topps used in the U.S. Hockey cards had essentially stopped being printed since the late 1930s, so Parkhurst's 1951-52 release was the first major postwar hockey set — and, for its first three years, Parkhurst was hockey's dominant card maker, since Topps didn't enter the hockey market until 1954.
• Growing card sizes, one blank-back year.The 1951-52 set is small (roughly 44.5×63.5mm) and is the only Parkhurst year with blank card backs. The cards grew in 1952-53 and again in 1953-54, when Parkhurst marketed the larger format as "Giant" size.
• The Gordie Howe rookie.Card #66 in the 1951-52 set is Parkhurst's marquee card and one of hockey's most important vintage rookies — a PSA 8 example sold for a record $51,555 in 2017, and even well-worn copies routinely bring four figures.
• Twelve sets, then dormant.Parkhurst printed hockey sets from 1951-52 through 1963-64 before the original company's run ended, and the name went unused for hockey cards for decades afterward.

• Revived in the early 2000s, settled with Upper Deck by 2005-06. The Parkhurst name resurfaced as a hockey 50th-anniversary tribute in the early 2000s before Upper Deck released 2005-06 Upper Deck Parkhurst Hockey, timed to land as an affordable option for collectors chasing the Sidney Crosby/Alex Ovechkin rookie class.
• A budget-tier, retro-designed set builder's product. Modern Parkhurst runs a large base checklist (recent years have run around 330 base cards) with short-printed Star and Rookie subsets, plus lower-odds insert chases and autographs rather than a memorabilia-heavy checklist — closer in spirit to a nostalgia-driven retail product than a premium hit brand.
• Format has shifted year to year.Parkhurst sold as physical retail packs through Upper Deck's e-Pack platform for several years, then moved to a digital-only e-Pack release (with autograph and insert hits redeemable as physical cards) for a couple of seasons, before returning to a traditional physical hobby/retail release tied to the brand's 75th anniversary. Always confirm which format a given year used before assuming a "pack-pulled" Parkhurst card exists physically as printed.
• A related spinoff: Parkhurst Champions.Upper Deck has also released Parkhurst Champions as a related e-Pack product built around '51 Retros — cards echoing the original 1951-52 design — alongside its own insert lineup.

• Parkhurst vs. O-Pee-Chee. Both are affordable, entry-tier Upper Deck hockey products with minimal autograph and memorabilia content. O-Pee-Chee leans on its own long-running retro brand identity dating back to the original OPC company, while Parkhurst leans specifically on the 1951-52 design lineage and set-building appeal.
• Parkhurst vs. flagship Upper Deck Series 1/2.Young Guns, printed in Upper Deck's flagship Series 1 and Series 2 sets, remains hockey's single, universally recognized rookie card. A player's Parkhurst rookie insert sits alongside — not in place of — their Young Guns card, and typically carries far less value.
• Parkhurst vs. Ice or Black Diamond. Ice and Black Diamond are built around a distinct physical format or a hit-heavy, higher-price checklist. Parkhurst is positioned well below that tier — an affordable, nostalgia-driven set rather than a premium, hit-chasing product.

• Confirm which era."Parkhurst" can mean an original 1951-64 vintage card or a modern Upper Deck product from 2005-06 onward — they share a name and, in recent years, a design nod, but nothing else.
• For vintage Parkhurst, verify the year and card size, since the set grew from a small 1951-52 format to the larger "Giant" size by 1953-54 — mismatched size-to-year claims are a red flag.
• For modern Parkhurst, confirm the exact subset, since base, Star/Rookie short prints, inserts, and Parkhurst Champions cards carry very different scarcity and are easy to conflate by name alone.
• Check whether that year's release was physical or digital-first,since Parkhurst has used both formats — a digital-issued year's base cards may not exist as a physical pack pull the way an earlier or later year's does.
• Price off comps for the exact player, year, and subset. See How Much Are My Sports Cards Worth? rather than assuming any Parkhurst card carries vintage-era value.

Confirm the exact card with Identify & Research — free-path first (on-device OCR, catalog match, and fingerprints). For hockey's flagship rookie insert, see What Is an Upper Deck Young Guns Card? For Upper Deck's other budget-tier hockey brand, see What Is an Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee Card? For the full history of Upper Deck as a company, see What Is an Upper Deck Card?, or open the full guides library.