When Your Favorite Set Features TWO Relics of Your Favorite Player!

Quick update before today's post:  I'm running a group break for a hobby box of 2021 Panini Diamond Kings.  If you are interested, please check out this post for all of the details.  Plenty of great teams remain (plus a number of super cheap teams)!  Thanks and we now can return to today's originally scheduled post!

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Long time readers will know that I'm a huge fan of the Allen & Ginter brand.  Oh sure, this year's Ginter set is definitely lacking some of the magic and charm of earlier editions of the brand but I still have a soft spot in my heart for the set.  Topps must know that I like Ginter because they seemed to specifically try and lure me in once again by putting not one but two different Barry Larkin relic cards in the set!

The first relic is one of the full-sized relic cards - card #AGA-BL.

Kind of a boring photo of Larkin here but at least the relic bit is quite large.  I bought this card off of eBay and it unfortunately came with some small creases on the front - but for how little I paid I decided it wasn't worth the effort to complain to the seller (seriously though, don't ship relics in PWEs people)!!

The other Larkin relic in the set is much, much nicer (also acquired via a second eBay auction win)!

That's a framed mini relic - card #MFR-BL.  I'm a huge fan of the framed relics and I've stated numerous times that I wish Topps would go back and make all relics in the A&G set framed relics.  I kind of like the stained glass-esque looking background on the mini relics this year though the addition of the ivy (?) is an odd choice.

All told, it feels great to have two more Barry Larkin cards for my ever-growing collection!  It's certainly nice that Topps continues to show my favorite player some love, many years after his retirement!  That certainly keeps player collecting fresh and fun - and quite honestly, that's been my main driving force to even bother purchasing any new cards this year!