2014 Bowman Platinum baseball is about a week old and it is showing no sign of slowing down. If this trend continues, then it will be the next in a growing line of successful current year MLB releases.
Yes, I know that 2014 MLB is starting to sound like 2012 NFL products, but if you own a sports card store, can there be any better music to your ears? Collectors have to be happy as well since box prices have not yet exploded like so many of the other current year’s baseball card offerings.
At the wholesale level, stores are offering to pay only slightly above factory cost, which is great for shops that are looking to restock for the masses. This might be the first product to be suffering slightly from 
solicitation that occurred after the season’s rookie hype set in. I can only imagine that if shops were throwing bigger orders at Topps, that the distributors were doing the same as well.
Once again Bowman Platinum offers two autographs and one additional autographed relic card per box with the chance at oodles (yes I said oodles) of 1/1 cards. There are 1/1 printing plates, 1/1 superfractors, 1/1 printing plates patches, 1/1 prospect bat plates, 1/1 purely platinum autographs and /1 purple ice parallels. Sure 1/1 cards are easier to pull than at any point since the industrial revolution, but it doesn’t make pulling them any less fun. It looks like this Byron Buxton autographed patch card went for above a grand.
Bring a Bowman release, collectors can enjoy the best of both worlds with 25 base set rookies and a grip (yes I said that too) of prospects, many of which like the recently called up Javier Baez (who literally JUST hit a game winning HR in his first game against my Colorado Rockies as I sat down to write this) are already playing in the majors. Other prospect or rookie autographs include Jose Abreu, Kris Bryant, George Springer, Mark Appel, Byron Buxton, Oscar Taveras and more.
An excellent selection of veterans made their way into the set with possible signatures of hobby heroes like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, Ozzie Smith, Wade Boggs and others.
Stuck with an extra three grand in your bank account? How about this Jose Abreu Atomic Refractor auto?
In addition to the single singed cards, look for duals /25, triples /10 and the almost impossible to pull six- player autographed booklet cards. Each of these elusive singles is numbered to just 5 made and there are three different player combinations featuring some of the prospects mentioned above.
I have no doubt that my store will be out of Bowman Platinum a few times before the end of this season and while it is nice to be able to offer a MLB product to collectors without having to cross off the shelf price too many times, I hope that some of the baseball releases in the “on deck circle” do not regress below cost as in about a month, the 800lb collecting gorilla known as the NFL will be kicking off.
Below is a list of the hottest 2014 Bowman Platinum cards on eBay now.
Mike Fruitman owns Mike’s Stadium Sportscards in Aurora, Colo. Normally, his column focuses on what products are selling best in hobby shops. See his eBay listings here. 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].
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