Bowman Football 2015 Box Break

A couple of years ago when the football card rookie crop was especially weak, Bowman was the first release of the year and actually became somewhat of a surprise hit. One of the reasons for the great response was the larger, jumbo-like packs with each box containing four autographs.

Frankly, the idea was a pretty good lesson for card companies. While we understand the responsibility to make a profit, companies also have a responsibility to provide perceived good value to their customers. If you, as a company, stop providing good value then the new release sinks like a stone upon release and collectors do not enjoy breaking the product. Fortunately, the formula Bowman began to use a couple of years ago is continuing to pay dividends for both collectors and dealers.

Bowman Football 2015 was issued with 10 packs per box and 25 cards per pack. Each box has four rookie autographs and one veteran relic card. You can read our full preview here.

Nick’s Sportscards here in the Dallas area reported excelled sales at just over $100 per box while leading on-line retailers are currently between $80-85 per box before shipping.

The base card designs have the player photo surrounded by white borders. The team logo, player’s name and position is at the bottom. Meanwhile the backs have biographical information, an informational blurb as well as seasonal and career stats. The set is broken up into a veterans and a rookie set.

Here’s how our box broke down:

Base Veteran Set: 70 of 110/ Base Rookie Set: 80 of 110. If you are going to get more cards in one set or the other, wouldn’t you rather have more rookies than veterans? We did get both of the key quarterbacks: Winston and Mariota. 150 cards gives us a good start on the base set and we received no duplicates.

Veteran Black Parallel: 19 of 110

Veteran Rookie Parallel 36 of 110

Rainbow Black Veterans: Montee Ball, Randall Cobb, Derek Carr, Brandon Cooks, Andy Dalton, Allen Hurns, Russell Wilson, Ben Roethlisberger

Rainbow Black Rookies: Vic Beasely, Tevin Coleman, Jalen Collins, Kevin Johnson, Nate Orchard

Silver Ice: Golden Tate (Veteran); Malcolm Brown (Rookie)

Blue Parallel (#d to 499): Tevin Coleman

Rainbow Blue Parallel (#d to 499): Matt Jones, Hauoli Kikaha

Gold Parallel (#d to 399): Dominique Brown

Rainbow Gold Parallel (#d to 299): David Johnson

Orange Parallel (#d to 299); Brandon Bridge

Red Parallel (#d to 199): Blake Sims

Rainbow Blue (#d to 99): Colin Kaepernick

1948 style Bowman Mini (All rookies): Javorious Allen; T.J. Clemmings; Jalen Collins; Dante Fowler, Garrett Grayson; Austin Hill; Tony Lippett; Owamagbe Odighizuwa; Brandon Scherff; P.J. Williams

Die Cuts: Kelvin Benjamin; Peyton Manning; Philip Rivers

Veternal Relics: Andre Ellington

Printing Plate Yellow (1 of 1): Danielle Hunter

Chrome Rookie Autographs: Shane Carden; Deontay Greenberry; Trae Waynes

Chrome Rookie Autographs Orange (#d to 50): David Johnson

With a haul like this, one can see why the sales have been good for Nick and Debbie even at more than $100 per box. Four autographs, a relic card, a solid quantity of parallels and other inserts—not to mention all of the base cards– makes the average cost per card about 40 cents, which is pretty reasonable. We lucked out by snaring the Hunter Printing Plate in addition to the four autos.

Bowman 2015 Football may not win awards for design, mainly thanks to its ultra-early release date which prevents Topps from getting good photos of the young players in their new uniforms. If you hate parallels you might be turned off because there are a lot of them. There are also a ton of different rookies who’ve signed here and the bet is that quite a few won’t make the grade. For those football-hungry collectors anxious for a new season’s product, though, it’s hard to imagine being disappointed with a box as long as you see what the cards look like ahead of time. If the overall 2015 rookie crop proves to be a good one, this product could hold up very well.