Some Pristine Cards!

Despite Barry Larkin being retired for nearly 20 years now, card companies haven't shied away from making new Larkin cards.  Case in point, 2023 Topps Finest.  

In the 2023 Topps Finest set, Larkin has the following cards:

• 36 Base card
• 36 Refractor
• 36 Purple Refractor #/99
• 36 Blue Refractor #/75
• 36 Gold Refractor #/50
• 36 Orange Refractor #/25
• 36  Pristine
• 36 Pristine Blue #/75
• 36 Pristine Gold #/50
• 36 Pristine Orange #/25
• ADR-BL  Around the Diamond Autograph
• ADR-BL  Around the Diamond Autograph Gold Refractor #/50
• ADR-BL Around the Diamond Autograph Orange Refractor #/25
• ADR-BL  Around the Diamond Pristine Refractor #/99

And that's not counting any cards with a stated print run of under 25 copies!  

Topps Pristine isn't a set that I can afford boxes of and thus it's a set that I know very little about.  However, plenty of other people must be able (and willing) to buy boxes of this stuff because eBay was flooded with a few of the lower end Barry Larkin cards from the set.  For myself, I managed to nab a pair of cards including a card that's instantly a gem in my own collection:

That's an Across the Diamond Autograph / Relic card of Barry Larkin.  It's not serially-numbered but it is a nice looking hit!  I'm particularly happy that the autograph is on card - Larkin has such a nice signature too which helps.  

The other card I grabbed was this Blue Refractor numbered out of 75.  

Not much to say about that one other than it's one less card that I now need to try and track down at a later date.  I highly doubt I'll ever finish off the full run of 2023 Topps Pristine Barry Larkin cards but at least I did get a nice autograph out of the attempt.

I suppose for as long as Topps keeps producing nice Barry Larkin cards, I'll keep trying to track at least a few of them down for myself!