2011 Bowman Platinum Baseball Box Break Recap and Review

When you think of Bowman, you think rookie cards and you think prospects.  2011 Bowman Platinum Baseball is a premium offering in the Bowman line.  It’s not the top of the line, which is reserved for Bowman Sterling, but it is a regal package.  Normally with premium cards the emphasis is put on big hits, monster auto and relic cards.  While Bowman Platinum offers 3 auto cards per box, the strength of this set comes from the different colored parallels and xfractors.  It is a gold mine for “rainbow” PC collectors.   Without this understanding, Platinum can appear to be a hugely hit or miss kind of product, when, in fact, it delivers on its intent quite well.

Bowman Platinum falls under our premium cards category.  Each box contains 20 packs with 5 cards per pack.  Each box delivers 3 autographs, 2 Chrome and 1 auto/relic and each pack contains 1 Chrome Prospect.

Here are some of the cards we pulled from the box.

 Ryan Howard base, front and back

Joe Mauer, Miguel Cabrera, Brandon Belt

Evan Longoria, Albert Pujols, David Ortiz

Robinson Cano, Michael Pineda, Freddie Freeman

 Gold Parallels - Billy Butler, Josh Rodriguez

Kyle Drabek, Brent Morel

 Green Parallels - Carlos Santana, Jon Lester

Red Parallel - Jose Reyes

The Prospects.

Manny Machado base, front and back

Cito Culver, Matt Harvey, Mike Foltynewicz

Bryce Harper Xfractor

 Xfractors - Jameson Faillon, Alex Wimmers

Jonathan Schoop, Kolbrin Vitek

Chris Archer - Green #/599

Sammy Solis - Blue #/199

And the 3 autographs

 Matt Harvey Autographed Refractor

 Trevor Bell Auto Relic

Miguel De Los Santos Auto #/399

Overall Look

These are sharp looking chrome cards with great photography.  Configuration of auto cards and relics are very nice.

Quality and Variety of Players

As with all prospect sets, quality can fluctuate with the success of the player, but prospectors know this is part of the deal.   The checklist for current players is very high quality.   Even at it's compact size, it offers enough variety to please everybody.

Do the Hits satisfy?  Are the cards too base heavy?

If you have an understanding of what this product delivers, you will be satisfied. Rainbow collectors will revel in trying to secure every parallel of their favorite players.  There are some really nice prospect autos to be found and as with other Bowman products this year, the big chase is for Bryce Harper autos.

Will you keep coming back for more?

If this is the type of collecting you do, yes.  Multiple boxes is easy to see.  If you are looking for a specific card or player from this set, aftermarket singles are the way to go.  And for those of you looking to hit it big in the Harper Lottery, you will probably purchase as many boxes as your budget will allow.

Rating

 4 out of 5

For the right collector, 2011 Bowman Platinum Baseball delivers a premium experience.


Review box provided by Topps