Review: Bowman Baseball 2013

Being a rookie card collector and with Topps having the only MLB rookie cards, I had to take a dive. Especially with Bowman that is loaded with them. As the box states, its truly the home of the rookie (prospect) cards.

Here are my thoughts on this product. Let me know what you think in comments!

Box Break Down:

• 24 Packs Per Box, 10 Cards Per Pack
• Look for One Autograph Card Per Box!
• One Silver Ice Parallel Per Box!
• $65 per HOBBY box

 

BASE CARDS: I will call them the usual Bowman look. Meaning a wrap around border sometimes white sometimes black and the photography in the middle. I do wish they would lessen the border and show more photography, but this isn't one of the worst ones I have seen. The prospect borders are a little too thick. They should have stuck with the base card one. I do wish they did more of the Stadium Club type of design with little border and great action photography.

Above, take note, that I also included the State/Hometown parallel and compared it to its base. If you are not paying attention to the cards when you sort you might not even notice you have one. I almost passed right by this one. I think a different color to the card itself, maybe a silver cardboard will help stand these out more.

  

INSERTS:  A huge upside to this product is the rest of the inserts. Especially if you are a chromie like myself. You find refractors of multiple colors (only plain in this box), colored parallels, Silver Ice parallels (I really like these) among prospect inserts. I was totally excited to see chrome refractor minis (Will Myers above) added to this product. They are called the Cream Of The Crop. I also like the Blue Sapphire reprint refractors as well and for some reason our pull of Tim Lincecum isn't shown. The one negative (not really too much of a negative) with the inserts is the gold parallels that fall one per pack. I would prefer a bonus rookie card or prospect card instead. They are just an boring insert and are worth as much as a base card.

The one thing I haven't figured out yet is if I will bother playing the prospect challenge or not. You can win prizes, but I don't usually fare well at those things.

  

 

AUTOGRAPHS: We hit an autograph refractor parallel numbered to 500. Have heard this guy might have a chance in the majors someday so hopefully by sitting on this card he will be worth it. With so many prospects in this product you never know who you are going to land. So not every break will have a shining star in it.

JERSEY/PATCH CARDS: N/A In this break. They can be found at very hard odds.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: With this being rookie loaded, insert and parallels at a decent rate and one prospect auto..I think this is a decent price for the product and would probably recommend it. Even if you don't hit it big with a Buxton auto..you still might be sitting on an MLB star. Other than the base cards, the gold parallels, the final negative was the fact I didn't hit a Buxton prospect card of any sort. That was disappointing. But overall, give it a try and let us know how you do!

RATINGS:  Bloggers Note: Our ratings are based specifically on the blaster, box or packs we opened and do not express what the overall product could bring. Ratings based on a 1-5. 1 Being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
                Packaging: 4
                Base Design: 2.5
                Insert Design: 4
                Memorablila/Autographs: 4
                Blaster, Hobby Box, or Pack Value: 4