Still Chasing the Past: A Couple of 2013 Hits

The 2016 Allen & Ginter's Checklist (thanks to Crackin' Wax by way of Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits) is out now, so I thought it would be the perfect time to show off some 2013 A&G cards I picked up for my collection.

The first is a card I've wanted for quite a long time. It's the mini framed autograph of bodybuilder and current reigning Mr. Olympia, Phil Heath. This card has been elusive for me, and I've been chasing a copy of it since I discovered it existed. I finally found one in my price range and grabbed it up. Pretty good stuff. It looks like the 2016 Allen & Ginter non-baseball autograph checklist is heavy on broadcasters and comedians, and on a quick review of it I didn't find much in the way of autographs I absolutely have to have. Maybe that will change once I look at the checklist again more closely.

This is a card that I already had a couple copies of, but I picked one up again because it was cheap and I have some kind of problem when it comes to cardboard. This relic swatch is at least a different color than the other two I have. I don't know if it comes from a different item or just a different part of the same colorful piece of clothing. I think I'm done chasing Phil Heath cards from 2013 Allen & Ginter's, but I can't really say that for sure. There are still plenty of other cards I 'need' from the last few years of A&G, so I'll probably try to focus on acquiring them if I can.

Mr. Olympia and an Olympian

I picked up a couple of Allen & Ginter's relics from an eBay seller who had some reasonable prices. One has been on my want list for a while. I already had a copy of the other one, but I don't mind having another in this case.

This is the one I already had a copy of, but I didn't have one with a four-color fabric swatch. I talked about my fascination with bodybuilding when I wrote about acquiring my previous copy, so I won't get into that too much here. Phil Heath won his first Mr. Olympia award in 2011 and has defended his title successfully each successive year so far, giving him five total wins to date. His website says he's hoping to break the record of 8 total Mr. Olympia titles held by both Ronnie Coleman and Lee Haney (Arnold Schwarzenegger is behind them with 7 total Mr. Olympia wins). I'd say the odds are against him as it takes a lot of work and luck to stay at the top of any discipline for that long, but time will tell.

This is a card that has been on my want list for quite some time, although I haven't really been looking too hard for it. It popped up on my eBay feed and that's what prompted this whole purchase. Kristin Armstrong is an Olympic Gold medal-winning cyclist who lives in my area, so when I saw that she had some Allen & Ginter's cards I decided to build a mini-collection. I got her autograph card way back in 2014, but had never tracked down the relic version. This one has got a nice bright yellow swatch embedded in it and the price was right. It is interesting to note the guarantee on the back of the card, which instead of being a generic 'no particular event or season' paragraph states that the relic swatch is from a racing jersey that Kristin wore during the 2007 cycling season.

I know people go back and forth about the inclusion of non-baseball subjects in Topps' Allen & Ginter's products, but I happen to like the variety. Some of my favorite cards from A&G are relics and autos from people like Kristen Armstrong, Phil Heath, actress Felicia Day, wrestler The Iron Sheik (I'm certain I have a relic from him but I don't have a post about it), model Kate Upton, and Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney. I'm not always able to track down every card I want from the set, but the ones I do get are among the favorites in my collection.