Mystery hockey cards found in basement fetch $3.7m

An unopened case of ice hockey cards found in a basement office has earned a family in Canada $3.1m USD ($4.2m CAD; £2.4m) at auction.

Inside there could be more than 20 "rookie cards" of Wayne Gretzky, one of the sport's greatest ever players.

The family who discovered the case hidden in their Saskatchewan office were "ecstatic" at the sale, an auction house spokesman told CBC News.

The winning bid was made by a Canadian who has not yet been identified.

Heritage Auctions, which is based in Dallas, called the discovery of the pristine 1979-80 cards from the now-defunct O-Pee-Chee candy and trading card brand, "the greatest unopened find of the 21st Century".

The son was helping his father clear out his office in Regina in November when the case was discovered gathering dust, Jason Simonds, the sports cards specialist at Heritage, told the BBC.

The father was an "old-school collector" who had bought the sealed case years ago intending to open it and build sets to sell but simply never got around to it, he said. The family have asked to remain anonymous.

Cases like this one, which contain 16 boxes with 48 packs per box and 14 cards per pack and over 10,000 total cards, were originally intended to be sold to large stores who would open them and sell the individual packs to customers.

Before going to auction, all 16 wax boxes within the larger box were authenticated.

While it's not certain the case includes valuable Gretzky rookie cards, based on what O-Pee-Chee cases would usually contain, a number are likely inside, said Mr Simmonds.

"And, I mean, there's no guarantees, but it would be a pretty big statistical anomaly."

Heritage Auctions said in its lot description that considering there are 396 cards in the set, there could be about 27 physically pristine Gretzky rookies inside the brown cardboard case.

An individual Gretzky card can fetch anywhere from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands. Heritage Auctions sold one 1979 O-Pee-Chee card for $3.75m three years ago - a record.

With a 20% premium on top of the purchase, the final amount the Canadian bidder will pay is about $3.7m.

Mr Gretzky - nicknamed the "Great One" - played in the National Hockey League over a 20-year career from 1979 to 1999 for franchises like the Edmonton Oilers, the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers.

He won four Stanley Cup championships and nine Hart Trophies and set over 61 NHL records.