Lacrosse Card Landscape: The Gary Gait Collection

One of the great joys in the hobby is acquiring cards of the legends of sport. Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Johnny Unitas are among the greatest to ever play their given sports, and their popularity in the trading card world is correspondingly high.

While there have been many celebrated lacrosse players over the years, Gary Gait is probably the one most fans would consider to be the GOAT.

He and his twin brother, Paul, burst onto the national lacrosse scene as collegians who received countless individual honors and led Syracuse University to three consecutive national championships (1988-1990). Gary’s dominance continued at the international level and in the professional ranks in box and field lacrosse. Today he is the only individual to be a member of the U.S., Canadian, NLL and Professional Lacrosse Halls of Fame.

Though lacrosse card history is not nearly as robust as other sports, Gary Gait was represented on several cards during his playing career. As those cards were issued in a variety of ways (team and league issues with low print runs, as well as national releases), assembling a Gait collection is something that can be done with varying levels of cost and effort. 

Gary Gait has trading cards in seven different sets issued between 1992-2010. Because he is the subject of multiple cards within some of those sets, his official count currently stands at 16 licensed cards. There have been several custom-made Gait cards available on eBay in recent years, but since none are licensed cards they are not considered for inclusion in this article.

To help understand the rarity of each card/set, I ranked each between 1 and 5, with 1 signifying the most common and 5 the rarest/most difficult to find.

1992-93 STX/Nastasi – 3 – Gait is featured on three cards in this set, all of which can be found with roughly the same degree of difficulty. His base #54 is considered his true rookie card, but he also has a foil insert and is pictured with Paul on a separate card advertising the Gait Brothers Lacrosse Camp ‘93.

1999 CHOICE NLL All-Stars – 3 – This 12-card set was handed out to attendees of the 1999 NLL All-Star Game. While the print run is unknown, these cards have seemingly become a bit more available in recent years as sale prices started to increase.This set that was once a $5 eBay purchase can now generate a few hundred dollars when the cards are sold individually.

2000 GB Lax – 5 – Very likely the most difficult of all Gait cards to obtain, this seven-card set was produced by the Gait brothers and distributed for a short time via their lacrosse camps. Six of the seven cards feature Paul & Gary, while a single card shows only Gary. 

2001 Major League Lacrosse – 4 – The MLL issued a 36-card set during the league’s inaugural season. The cards were sold at games in six-card cellophane packs for $3 each. At the end of the season all unsold material was repackaged as complete sets and sold through a distributor. It has been said that only 500 total sets were produced, but those claims are thus far unsubstantiated. Still, this is a challenging set to acquire that includes a very desirable Gary Gait card.

2001 RocksLax Victoria Shamrocks – 5 – This card is part of a subset of retired players included in the 2001 Victoria Shamrocks team set. It is rumoured that only 100 of these sets were produced. As a result these cards are now practically non-existent on the secondary market more than 20 years later.

2002 B.C. Lacrosse Association Hall of Fame – 5 – The BC Lacrosse Association Hall of Fame issued a six-card set of field and box players in 2002. The cards were printed on very thin paper stock and are susceptible to damage. Gary and Paul Gait are featured on the same card in box lacrosse settings with individual photos representing different teams.

2010 Upper Deck World of Sports – 1 & 2 – Upper Deck included Gait in its 2010 World of Sports base set and Clear Competitors insert. The base card features the famous Air Gait image from the 1988 NCAA semi-final game against Penn. Though it has become popular in recent years, it is easily Gait’s most accessible card and typically the most affordable. The Clear Competitors insert was limited to 550 copies, but can still be found with relative ease.

A complete list of Gary Gait’s trading cards can be found on the Lax Card Archive. In fact, The Player Collections page has more than 100 players featured with their full trading card lineups listed. This is an ideal resource for people looking to build collections of individual players rather than annual sets.