The pristine unopened case of Oh-Pee-Chee brand NHL cards could contain as many as 27 much-coveted rookie cards of ‘the Great One’

Among avid collectors of sports trading cards, rumours of a “holy grail” – a trove of cards so rare that they shouldn’t exist – have long swirled, but never materialized.

“It thought if we were ever going to find it … it would be buried deep up in Canada and the owners wouldn’t even know they had it,” said the expert Steve Hart.