Le Masque

I picked this card up from a quarter box at a card show a while back and thought I would show it off here. This hidden gem, featuring Patrick Roy's famous Montreal Canadiens mask, was buried within the 1991-92 edition of Pro Set.

The back of the card lists this one as number CC2. I'm not sure what that means, if anyone knows can they please explain it to me.

Pretty simple design here. I really like how the bleu, blanc et rouge stands out on the solid black background, unlike some of the more colorful backgrounds used for more recent mask cards. The Pro Set logo in the upper left corner looks just right too.

 

The back of the card, in English, reads as follows: 

"The battle-scarred facemask tells a compelling story - of 100-mile-an-hour slapshots that didn't make him blink, of flying elbows and swinging sticks that didn't make a difference on the scoreboard. 

If you look hard enough at this battle-scarred mask, you'll see the ghostly imprint of a pair of Vezina trophies, three Jenning's trophies and two Trico trophies as well as a Conn Smythe trophy for the playoff MVP in 1986.

You'll see a pair of first all-star team appearances and a second all-star selection. And most importantly, you'll see the shadowy image of a Stanley Cup victory - climax to his first full season in the NHL. And a fraction of an inch behind the mask, you'll find the face of Patrick Roy, Montreal Canadiens goaltender par excellence and a hockey card collector."

At the bottom, at least on the English version, it also says the mask was designed by G.K. in Detroit, Michigan. Now that's something I never knew. 

I believe this is the first "Mask" card of it's kind, as it predates the 92-93 Pinnacle Masks subset by one year. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong though. There could very well be some even more obscure card at any point in time prior to this.