2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Kate Upton Autograph

I have a long and somewhat painful history with this particular card. Shortly after returning to collecting in 2013, I discovered Topps Allen & Ginter. One of the best things about the product line is the non-baseball autographs and relics. While not every signature or swatch is of interest to me, each season there are a handful of subjects that I mark as targets for my collection. My main target for 2012 was Kate Upton, who had an autograph and a relic in the set.

I eventually acquired a relic and an autograph, as well as a mini printing plate, but I ran into money trouble and wound up selling the autograph and the plate, breaking even on the plate and taking a decent loss on the autograph. Yuck. Ever since I sold it, there has been a hole in my collection.

There are usually one or two copies of Upton's autograph card on eBay, but the prices on them are uniformly higher than I want to spend. One popped up earlier this year, though, at a fairly reasonable price. I waited and waited on it, and eventually the price came down to the best price I've seen in a while. I was able to purchase it and add a copy of this card back to my collection. It still probably cost me more than I should be paying for a trading card, but sometimes we do crazy things for the sake of 'completing' our collections.