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The Barry Larkin Experiment: Round 1L

Welcome to another edition of everyone's favorite Barry Larkin card competition.  Today, we need to take a look at some recent results (Round 1J to be precise) and then open up the voting for the next round, Round 1L!

Round 1J featured our first tie for first place of the voting!

The good news is that it's easy to know which two cards will move one, unfortunately, for future seedings I have to have one of the two cards be declared the winner.  Before I unveil my choice for the winner, I would be remiss if I didn't point out just how close the final vote was!  For the first time in any round, the difference between first place and fourth place was a mere 3 votes.  Sure, a cynic might claim that was only because of relatively poor voter turnout, but still...the facts are the facts, no matter how I choose to spin them!

Anyhow, I need a winner so I'm going to give the nod to the 1991 Score base card.  I appreciate and enjoy every Larkin relic in my collection - but when push comes to shove, I usually tend to choose the set with the more interesting (or visually pleasing) design.  1991 Score is a great set and deserves to have a representative in the next round for sure!

Before I unveil the next group of nominees, I want to remind you to vote for Round 1K if you haven't already.  I'd feel better about the group consensus if there were more than 15 votes for most of these polls!  With that out of the way, let's look at the next round.

Round 1L:

1991 Bowman silver slugger subset:

For some reason, I've never liked Bowman much...and that general disdain extends to the 1991 set for sure.  It's a boring set, a boring card, and frankly, if it weren't a card depicting Barry Larkin I probably wouldn't have ever given the card a second look.  I believe this card is part of the silver slugger subset (hence the gold foil at the top)...but that doesn't make it any better.  In fact, as you'll soon see, I think the subset card is worse than the regular base card!

2003 Topps T205 base:

Unlike the first nominee, this is easily one of my favorite Larkin cards displayed thus far in the competition.  A fairly simple design where the emphasis is on the subject matter rather than some sort of fancy foiling or over-the-top gimmickry.  I don't know how much other people like this set, but I could see the card moving on multiple rounds from now if things fell T205's way just a bit in terms of future competition.

1991 Bowman base:

Ok, another '91 Bowman shows its face in the same round.  If were doing all the voting that would mean that the other two cards would almost be guaranteed to move on.   That said, if there is a representative from '91 Bowman that does get to move on, it should definitely be this card.  The subset card is hideous, between the gold foil on the front and the huge block of ugly text on the back, that type of lazy card design should not be rewarded by anyone.  This card is at least a bit interesting, and I do appreciate the stats by team breakdown (even if it is ultimately meaningless).

 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game - Bronze Parallel

I believe this is the first instance of a parallel card of a base card that was already featured in a different round of voting. This particular card is bronze colored and serially numbered 251/299.  The previous round of voting (Round 1K) has the regular base card in it - it will be interesting to see if either (or both) cards make it to the second round.  As of the time I wrote this post, the base card in Round 1K was in a deadlock for second place...so it's still possible that both cards make it to the next round!

Those are your choices, now go vote on the sidebar!

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  3. First time posting to a blogspot, but I am happy to have found this "experiment" also excited to meet other Larkin collectors.

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