Collectors craving Connor McDavid rookie cards

It's a little piece of cardboard, two-and-a-half-inches wide, three-and-a-half high.

No one even knows what it looks like.

But thousands of people seem to really, really want one.

It's Connor McDavid's official, licensed, league-approved NHL rookie card.

And it won't be available until November 4.

At Wayne's Sports Cards & Collectibles near West Edmonton Mall, people have been coming in for weeks asking about the cards.

"We've been getting a minimum of 25 to 30 calls a day on it," said Wayne Wagner, who has owned the store for almost 25 years and been in the sports card industry for 35.

Under an agreement signed by the NHL, the players' association and Upper Deck, the league's only licensed card company, an official rookie card can't be released until after a player appears in a league game (pre-season doesn't count).

McDavid, selected first by the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL draft this spring, will appear in his first league game in St. Louis on October 7.

His official card won't hit the market until almost a month later.

Wagner already has "a very long list" of people who've called to reserve boxes of cards, cases of cards, or individual McDavid cards.

His store will have McDavid cards on November 4. But he has no idea how many.

"Because we have to physically sit down and open the packs, no different than anyone else, to get these cards."

He and his staff will open about 120 boxes, or 2,880 packs, on the day the cards are issued.

Any McDavids they get will be removed from the packs, carefully slipped into special plastic holders and sold to people on the waiting list for about $200 each.

If your name isn't on the list, well, good luck.

Hockey cards come in random packs. Eight cards to a pack. Twenty-four packs to a box. So the chance of walking into a store, buying a pack of cards and walking out with a McDavid, are pretty darn long.

Longer still, Wagner said, because the card company "short prints" rookie cards, to give them extra value.

Odds are there will be one McDavid rookie card in every seven or eight boxes. Each box of 24 packs will cost around $95. So if you plan to hunt for one, you'd have to spend $600 to $800 to have even odds of getting just one of those much-coveted cards.

Many collectors already own McDavid cards. But those are from the World Junior Championships or Team Canada.

The one coming in November will be the "official" rookie card, the first one to show the teenage sensation wearing an Oilers jersey.

And that makes all the difference to collectors.

"The rookie card is the most sought-after card, and usually one of the more valuable cards," Wagner said. "It's almost like the first run of a vehicle off a line. You want to have the first item. It's always been that way."

Of course, rookie cards come out every year. Other Oilers' number one picks had them. Taylor Hall had one, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had one, so did Nail Yakupov. Fans and collectors wanted those cards, and will likely hang on to them for years.

But this is different.

"Connor McDavid is being touted as a generational hockey player," Wagner said.

The last one of those was Sidney Crosby. Before that, Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky.

"The interest isn't in Edmonton alone," Wagner said. "It's kind of worldwide."

He has a friend who owns a card shop in Colorado, where they've also been getting calls about McDavid cards.

Because of their relative scarcity, rookie cards for the game's biggest stars have always fetched the highest prices.

Crosby's rookie card from 2005-06 is now worth $300. Gretzky's rookie card generally sells for about $800.

A Gordie Howe or Bobby Orr, if you can find one, will set you back about $3,000.

Those cards are extremely rare, because most ended up in the garbage decades ago, back when little boys bought cards for a nickel or a dime a pack, long before serious collectors came along.

So, in the short term, the McDavid cards will have increased value. Whether they hold that value over the long term depends on what the teenager does on the ice, this year and throughout his career.

One thing seems certain. Few of those cards will end up in trash cans.