Annual Bowman Baseball Card Release a Hit

When the baseball season starts there are any numbers of guarantees.

1) Collectors will count down the days until Topps 1 releases.

2) Collectors will count down the days until Bowman releases.

3) Collectors will ask me how good the signed cards they pulled out of Bowman are.

4) I will go to eBay to see how well that card is selling for since I do not memorize Baseball Americana’s top prospects.

We started 2015 Bowman Arrival Day with five cases of jumbos and two cases of the regular version. By the end of the day, every case of jumbo was shredded and we had made a heck of a dent into the two cases of hobby boxes. Since then, we have helped with the demise of another four cases of jumbos with another two just arriving on Wednesday afternoon.

For the past few decades, Bowman has lived up to their self-titled billing as The Home Of The Rookie Card and while there are not as many rookies in April releases as there are in October products, the possible prospects more than make up for that.

With 30 actual base set rookies like Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, Brandon Finnegan, Javier Baez and a whole herd of players only a prospector could love, Bowman offers a great selection of guys who have already been invited to The Show.

That’s followed up by 150 prospects in both the base style as well as the chrome version. Of course Topps offers every possible Skittles color (including the more obscure colors) as a parallel with the SuperFractors being the BMOC.

Another welcome returning set are the Bowman Scout’s Top 100. Now we are getting to the names we all know and love to see signed cards from. Hobby hero Kris Bryant is joined by Byron Buxton (who is still somehow a prospect. Seriously Twins, bring the man up already), Dylan Bundy, Archie Bradley, David Dahl and another 41 players we will be seeing sooner than later. With the base set being numbered to 25 and 1/1 versions, you can hope to pull one of these from your cases.

My personal favorites are the Rookie Recollections Refractor Autographs. Now this is where my owning a store for 22+ years comes into play since I remember selling each of these guys when they first landed. I mean you did not think that Bowman would be prospects only, did you? Bernie Williams, Carlos Baerga, Frank Thomas, John Olerud, Juan Gonzalez, Moises Alou and Marquis Grissom all signed for this set with versions to 99, 5 and of course (wait for it…) 1.

Since their initial arrival, it seems that Bowman jumbo boxes have softened slightly, but are still moving incredibly fast and with no other prospect sets on the horizon, if any of these guys develops a following, you can expect more wow from the bow.

Yes, we are selling other things of course. Here are the ‘other’ top 5 selling sports card boxes:

1) 2015 Topps Gypsy Queen MLB – Collectors seem to be drawn once again to this retro set. With four hits per box instead of the one in Heritage, it is no doubt that boxes are rolling out of my shop.

2) 14/15 Panini Immaculate NBA – I do not have anything to say other than my one case arrived today, I texted one of my whales (guys who spend a lot on new product) and about three minutes later I had a commitment on it.

3) 14/15 Upper Deck Ice NHL – I am sold out, my distributors are sold out, Upper Deck is sold out. Nuff said?

4) 2015 Panini Diamond Kings MLB – What is old is new again as collectors are drawn to this two hit per box offering. The art on these cards more than makes up for the lack of actual team uniforms and logos, at least in our experience.

5) 2015 Upper Deck NFL – Upper Deck’s last football offering for a while has been a hit since it released and last week’s draft has done nothing to slow down interest in this release.

Mike Fruitman owns Mike’s Stadium Sportscards in Aurora, CO. Normally, his column focuses on what products are selling best in hobby shops. He’s got thousands of cards for sale on COMC.com under the ID cardmn5150. Enjoy new arrivals and big hits from Mike’s on Twitter. Mike’s is always looking for more friends on Facebook and you can email him at [email protected].