REVIEW:2018 Bowman Baseball

One of the hottest products on the market right now, Bowman baseball came out hitting hard with a Golden Ticket search. Well, not a real Golden Ticket or anything from Wonka, but a real valuable card. The Superfractor of Otahni is still out there, yes it wasn't in my box sadly, waiting to be pulled and cashed in for $75,000. Wow. I could have paid some bills down with that and maybe be able to afford something in the hobby as well

I am not sure how I feel about this bounty Golden Ticket card find. I am not sure if it's good for the hobby or bad. I kinda feel like it has brought out the greediness from collectors and from people selling boxes of Bowman as prices have skyrocketed. I wanna hear your guys thoughts on this.

Now you can hear my thoughts on 2018 Bowman.

In every hobby box of Bowman you will find 24 packs of 10 cards each. There will be one Atomic rookie parallel, one Bowman Sterling insert and one autograph per box. Boxes right now, well,are crazy at $175-$180 with jumbos going for almost twice that. If you are lucky, go retail if you can find any.

The base card design for Bowman looks really nice  in my opinion this year. I don't even mind the border actually for a person who prefers borderless cards. I think the team logo at the bottom is what catches my attention.

There are 100 cards to collect in the base set including veteran stars (by the way this marks Judge card #67 for my PC)

 

and key stars of tomorrow. Nice walkoff on Friday night by Andjuar by the way.

 

As always, Bowman comes with tons of prospects as that's what they are known for. King of the rookies. These are not apart of the base set and are there own set. There are 150 to collect.

 

Also 150 of the chromed-up versions of prospects only to seek out as well. I pulled Gleyber for chrome but not for paper. If you have an extra of him send him my way as I am trying to collect him now as well.

 

The paper prospects and the base cards have parallels. What product doesn't have parallels today?? This is a sky blue that is numbered to 499 and falls 1:95 packs.

 

 

Other paper parallels include,

• Purple /250
• Blue /150
• Green /99 (Retail only)
• Gold /50
• Orange /25 
• Red /5
• Platinum 1/1
• Printing Plates 1/1.

Also having parallels is the chromed-up versions of the prospects. I pulled a base refractor and an aqua. The base refractor is numbered to 499 and falls 1:63 packs while the aqua falls 1:132 packs.

 

Here is also the promised Atomic refractor that falls one-per-box.

 

 

Other chrome parallels not in my box include,

• Purple /250
• Blue /150
• Blue Shimmer /150
• Aqua /125
• Aqua Shimmer /125 
• Green /99
• Green Shimmer /99 
• Yellow /75
• Gold /50
• Gold Shimmer /50, 
• Orange /25
• Orange Shimmer /25 
• Red /5
• Red Shimmer /5
• SuperFractor 1/1
• Printing Plates 1/1. 

Now onto the inserts. These look really solid in terms of design. Most inserts have the following parallels excluding a few. Atomic /150, Green /99, Gold /50, Orange /25 , Red /5, and SuperFractor 1/1.

The Bowman Scouts Top 100 insert was the weakest insert design of the group but it does include the Top 100 rookies. These fall 1:4 packs

 

Here we kick off with one of the good looking inserts that falls 1:12 packs, Talent Pipeline. It takes a look at upcoming prospects for each team.

 

1:6 packs will land you a Bowman Trending inserts. Some of the top rookies are included in this set.

 

Falling at 1:8, here are some of the rookies playing this year that could make a major impact for ROY. I know Albies falls into that category for sure.

 

Wanna feel even older? Falling at 1:8 packs, Bowman Birthdays lets us see players were born. I think this was my favorite-ist design of the entire product. Gives you that 90's feel.

 

And falling 1:24 or one per box is the Bowman Sterling inserts. Cool looking card and now it teases us to want Bowman Sterling to return.

 

Now onto my hit of the box. Like I said it wasn't Ohtani and actually wasn't even a player I knew but it's purple, a prospect so all is good. You just never know who is next.

Cedric Mullins purple autograph that falls 1:313 packs.

 

 

Other chrome prospect autograph parallels include, 

• Refractor /499 
• Blue /150 
• Atomic /100
• Green /99 
• Green Shimmer /99
• Gold /50 
• Gold Shimmer /50 
• Orange /25
• Orange Shimmer /25
• Red /5 
• Red Shimmer /5 
• SuperFractor 1/1
• Printing Plates 1/1

Other hits found in Bowman but not in my box include,

• Paper Prospect Autographs (Retail only)
• Chrome Rookie Autographs
• Lucky Autograph Redemption
• Dual Bowman Prospect Autographs
• All-America Game Autographs
• Bowman Scouts Top 100 Autographs
• Bowman Sterling Continuity Autographs
• ROY Favorites Autographs
• Ultimate Autograph Book

OVERALL: The price right now for Bowman is nuts, but I like the design and the potential value wise in Bowman. I always have. When collectors seek out for rookies of their favorite players, this is the brand they turn to. Especially for autographs. One would suggest sticking to retail or box breaks til Otahni is found and prices drop on hobby boxes unless you are joining the chase and can afford to do so.

If you want to see who is in Bowman, you can check out the checklist HERE.

Please take a minute out to thank Topps for providing the box to review. Some of the cards you see above will be included in the Fantasy Baseball contest! Follow Topps on all social media sites and check out their website HERE for cards and more!