Happy Landings!

I ended last week on a political note so today I am going in a different direction and taking aim at a White Whale.

In the 1970s every little boy knew the name Evel Knievel, a daredevil that influenced us greatly. He started in 1966 and made his final appearance in 1981 but in between broke every bone in his body while he made jumps over Caesar’s Palace famed fountains, Snake River Canyon, buses and even sharks.

One of the most popular toys of the day was the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle set and you were a real boss if you got the BMX bike for Christmas. Even grown up kids still have fond memories of their favorite Evel Knievel toy, even making it on to an episode of My Name Is Earl. Merchandising for his products took on an entity on themselves appearing in comic books, movies, television shows, commercials, advertisements, video games, trading cards and plenty of books. He is still popular enough to be included in recent checklists for both Topps and Panini. The Simpsons spoofed him with their character Lance Murdock

Which brings me to today’s post. One of my White Whales is the 2007 Sportkings Autograph Evel Knievel #A-EK card but I don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on one of his autograph cards so I went in a bit of a different direction and instead picked up a 5x7 autograph picture he signed in red ink, now it isn’t same as having an on-card signature but I am calling it a fair exchange. To add to my EK collection I picked up a 2015 SportKings memorabilia card with a nice swatch of leather from one of his jackets.

 

I love when something as simple as an autograph and leather swatch can bring me back to those days in the 1970s when I was a kid living in New York and me and my brothers used to shoot our Evel Knievel bikes at each other down the hallway over the red shag carpet.