Bill Durnan: How Can Your Rookie Card Come Out Four Years After Your Rookie Card?

Most collectors recognize the 1955-56 Parkhurst #63 as Durnan's traditional rookie card. It's an important card of a Hockey Hall of Famer and six-time Vezina Trophy winner.

There's just one problem.

Durnan was on cardboard 7 years earlier.

I actually owned his oversized 1948-49 Exhibits Sports Champions issue. It's a fantastic piece—roughly postcard-sized.

For a while, that was my Durnan I included in the archive. It just didn’t sit right… I knew he had a 55 Parkhurst most people considered his rookie card.

Then I discovered the Bill Durnan 1951 Berk Ross instead.

The Berk Ross Hit Parade of Champions is a fascinating set. It wasn't strictly hockey—or even close. The 72-card release included stars from baseball, football, basketball, boxing, golf, hockey and other sports. These little coloured cards were originally issued as two-card perforated panels, with collectors separating them into individual cards. Durnan was originally attached to fellow Hockey Hall of Famer Bill Quackenbush.

But what really attracted me was the lone Durnan card itself.

He's shown in his Montreal Canadiens equipment. The Berk Ross card even shows Durnan in a blue Canadiens sweater—a quirky bit of 1950s hand-colouring rather than a uniform Montreal actually wore, adding even more vintage charm to the card.

Durnan wasn't just another vintage goalie. He won six Vezina Trophies and two Stanley Cups, yet his career fell directly into one of the great dead zones of hockey-card production. There simply weren't annual mainstream hockey sets documenting his career the way there would be for later generations.

That creates a strange collecting timeline.

The Exhibit came first.

The Berk Ross followed in 1951.

Then in 1955-56, Parkhurst included Durnan in its Oldtime Greats series—and that's the card most collectors recognize as his rookie.

A rookie card produced years after other cards of the same player existed.

Only in hockey cards.

I understand why the Parkhurst carries the traditional rookie designation, but that's also why building the Goalie Archive looks at rookie cards slightly differently (see the Mikka Kuprusoff BLOG)

For Durnan, I could have gone 3 ways; I had the earlier 1946 Exhibit.

I could have gone with the recognized 55 Parkhurst rookie.

‘Instead, I chose the weird little 1951 Berk Ross.