Why Diamond Matchbooks Matter to Vintage Goalie Rookie Card Collectors

One of the biggest surprises I've encountered while building the Goalie Archive is that not every NHL goalie has a traditional rookie card. For some, the closest thing to a rookie card for several early NHL goaltenders is a Diamond Matchbook.

Produced in 1935–36 and again in 1936–37, the Diamond Match Company released collectible matchbooks featuring NHL players from around the league. At first glance, they don't look like hockey cards. They were everyday matchbooks sold in stores, with a player portrait on the cover, the player's name and team printed along the spine, and a short biography inside. Most surviving examples have had the matches removed and unfolded so they can be displayed like cards, while complete unopened examples are much harder to find.

For most collectors, these are simply an interesting novelty. For goalie card collectors like me, they're much more than that.

Andy Aitkenhead 1935 rookie DIamond Matchbook

Goalies such as Harold Starr and Andy Aitkenhead never appeared in the major hockey card sets of their era. There was no Parkhurst, no O-Pee-Chee, no Topps, and certainly no Young Guns waiting decades in the future. If you want the earliest contemporary card of either player, the Diamond Matchbook is your only realistic option.

That's one of the fascinating challenges of collecting every NHL goaltender's rookie card. The further back you go in hockey history, the more you realize that "rookie card" doesn't always mean a traditional piece of cardboard. Sometimes it's a postcard. Sometimes it's a team-issued photograph. Sometimes it's a tobacco card. And sometimes it's a matchbook that was never intended to become a collectible in the first place.

These unusual issues are what make the hobby so enjoyable. Every goalie has a story, and every rookie card hunt is different. Finding a Andrei Vasilevskiy Young Guns is easy. Finding a graded Harold Starr Diamond Matchbook can take years.