[samosa4u]

I am not going back any further, because I never saw hockey in the 1950's or before

And that's why hockey card collecting sucks for you, because you refuse to collect vintage . The best ones are vintage: Howe, Sawchuk, Plante, Richard, Orr, Hull, Esposito, Morenz, Shore, Mikita, Keon, Vezina, Conacher, Apps, Broda, etc. I could give you a HUGE list, and all these cards are pretty valuable.

Heck, Ron Francis retired as the #4 scorer in NHL history, and his rookies are worth slightly more than a McDonald's Happy Meal.

There are two reasons why hockey cards from the 1980s aren't worth much:

1) They were mass-produced.

2) A lot of cards from this decade have a Topps and an O-Pee-Chee version (example, Patrick Roy has a Topps RC and an O-Pee-Chee RC).