Baseball trading cards are all the craze in the past when they were first introduced by bubble gum companies. What attracts both kids and adults today to buy these cards is the prospect of trading them to get a hold of their favorite baseball star or get a rare autographed card. The exciting part of this trading frenzy is opening a pack of cards and getting uncommon cards. When uncommon cards are in their most pristine condition, their market values are increased. However, getting hold of the rarest cards from a boxes and packs proves to be difficult, so only the most dedicated hobbyist will invest a lot of their time, money, and effort, and take the challenge. Many traders and collectors will be contented with a more relaxed pastime.
Bowman brand history
At the height of the craze in the 50s and 60s, Bowman, and Topps, both bubble gum manufacturers, entered into a side business of producing popular trading cards based on the best baseball stars during their time to increase sales. They fought to have exclusive contracts with the baseball players, so the popular stars would appear on only one brand of cards. Bowman eventually bowed out, and Topps bought the company in 1956. The Bowman baseball cards were resurrected to focus on rookie cards; hence the brand is the ‘Home of the Rookie Card’. Adult baseball fans up until today, who were kids decades before, still take their time in buying and trading Bowman cards.
Collector’s goal
The highest goal of anyone is obtaining the rarest cards, and may be earn a fortune from selling it. Some of more in-demand cards of the 2012 Bowman baseball cards are the autographed Bryce Harper and Yu Darvish baseball cards. In the 2010 set, prospect Stephen Strasburg was raved about. By far the most in-demand of the rare chrome cards is superstar Albert Pujols’ 2001 Bowman Chrome Set Card. If you are an avid baseball fan, there is a certain excitement to getting a hold of Bowman rookie cards. If it is your first time opening a Bowman card pack, the anticipation will certainly be off the roof. Knowing not what card to expect is one fun aspect of trading cards. Speculating who among the rookies will turn out to be stars is another one.
Different card design innovations
The look of Bowman baseball cards have changed over the years. When the production of the Bowman brand was reinstated in 1989, the card felt like colorful pieces of regular cardboard. But in 1992, Bowman stated to produce premium sets. So instead, hi-gloss images were printed on thick cardboard stock. In addition, many rookies and prospects were included in the set. Refractor panels were then attached a few years later. Another innovation is the issuance of parallel cards. This means that for every base card, there are at least 7 different colors, such as red, blue, gold, emerald, and ruby. In addition, red ink parallels exist of the blue-inked autographed cards. Inserts or chase cards are specially-produced cards and are inserted at varying degrees. Additionally, there are used game insert relic cards, so-called because a piece of used game jersey, cap, bat or base was included in the card.
Rare Bowman relic sets
Let’s look at the sets of rare Bowman baseball cards you might surprisingly unearth from that stash of Bowman card packs. To understand this, you will need to know about ratios. For instance, an Aaron Hill autographed used game base relic card was inserted at 1:106. This means 1 card was inserted in every 106 packs. Also, another measure is the numbering. If only 1 card is produced it will be known as a 1 of 1. There’s the ‘Topps 100’ which is a list of the 100 leading prospects. The “Bowman’s Brightest’ selects 25 prospects and highlights their most impressive skill. For the ‘Bowman Futures Game Triple Relic’ card set, there are only 99 reproductions for every card in the set. The card is a triple relic because there are three articles of used cloth per card. Vintage cards can be pulled in the form of ‘Buyback Book Cards’, which are produced from 30 cards back from the 50s before Bowman closed shop. Each Buyback Book has the signature on one side and the vintage card on the other of famous players like Phil Rizzuto, Walker Cooper, and Enos Slaughter. Much more relic sets of varying rarity are also produced.
Box type and rarity of cards
When you will buy Bowman cards, you will notice that there are different sets and boxes to choose from. Primarily, it depends on the year they were produced. Different years feature different pack specifications that will determine how many rare cards you may pull from each pack. For instance, the 2012 Bowman Hobby Box will carry 24 ten-card packs per box. Each pack has 5 base cards, 2 prospect cards, 2 chrome prospects and 1 gold parallel. There is one Bowman Chrome Autographed Card per box. However, the 2012 Bowman Platinum Hobby Box has 20 six-card packs. In stark contrast, each box will have 2 refractor autographed prospects, 1 X-fractor autographed parallel, 1 refractor autographed relic card, and 7 base card parallels. There is a chance to pull rare game used and full-platinum signed inserts. It’s your choice now, then, what box to purchase.
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