Danica Patrick Rookie Tape Autograph

I have to work the weekend and it's already getting late, so this is going to be a quick post. Probably. Sometimes I get long-winded on quick posts.

I have pretty much given up on being a completist collector when it comes to my player collections. There are so many products and parallels and hits out there that it's pretty much impossible to get everything made for an individual. That goes double when you're trying to collect cardboard featuring a star whose cards drive whole product lines. Although I do try to get as many cards for my collections as possible, I don't chase everything with equal zeal. But every so often I find something unique or different that I have to have.

That was the case with this 2011 Press Pass Eclipse Signature Series Rookie Tape autograph card of Danica Patrick. For people who aren't sure what Rookie Tape is, it's a yellow tape stripe that is put on the back of a car to let other drivers know that a racer hasn't raced that track before. There are different conventions and rules about it, but it is basically a bright marker on a car to let people know you're new. So this card contains a strip of tape, probably from Danica Patrick's Nationwide Series car, as she hadn't raced at the top level of NASCAR yet when this card was produced. The card is numbered # 09 / 11, so this isn't an easy one to find.

I happened to stumble across this listing very soon after it was posted to eBay. The price was too good and the relic was too unique for me to pass it up. I hit the Buy It Now pretty quickly and soon it was in my hands.

This isn't a very good picture of it, but the relic window is pretty deep, so the authentication sticker had to make a pretty big dip to get from the card surface down to the signature on the tape. Usually autographs are on the surface of the card (or on a sticker on the card), so you don't get a stepped authentication sticker like this.