About a month ago Topps announced that the autograph
checklist for 2011 Bowman Sterling Baseball would be significantly enhanced
from what was originally provided.
After busting a box, it is clear to see what they meant. At 13 auto and 7 relic cards this
product is loaded with enough goodness to make any prospecting collectors
happy.
Bowman Sterling Basetball comes in at the high end of our
premium cards category. Each hobby
box contains 6 mini-boxes with 5 cards each. Each mini-box should yield 1 Relic and
2 Autograph Cards for a hobby box total of 12 Autographs and 6 Relics. In addition to that you get a box topper dual relic and one dual autograph card.
Here are some of the cards we pulled.
Base Set
Eric Hosmer, front and back
Yankees Prospect Manny Banuelos, Indians Rookie Jason Kipnis
Base Parallels
Mike Moustakas Refractor #/199, Javier Baez Gold Refractor #/50
Box Topper
Justin Verlander - Roy Halladay Duel Game Used Memorabilia #/196
USA Baseball Relics
Dominic Ficociello
Nolan Fontana, Brady Rodgers
Rookie Relics
Zach Britton
Brandon Beachy, Michael Pineda
Rookie Autographs
Maikel Cleto, Nathan Eovaldi
Minor League Prospects
Chris Wallace, Mychal Givens, Aaron Hicks
2011 Major League Baseball Draft First Round Picks
Brandon Martin (#38 overall), Blake Swihart (#26 overall), Taylor Guerrieri (#24 overall)
Taylor Jungmann (#12 overall) Gold Refractor Auto #/50
Dual Auto
Minnesota Twins Ben Revere and Liam Hendriks #/225
Overall Look
This is solid design along the lines of Premium and Finest
but feels very Bowman. Not a lot
of variation besides color parallel and refractors, but that is fine.
Quality and Variety of Players
This is a tight base set at 50 cards and that is OK. The Autographs and relics checklist is
top notch.
Do the Hits satisfy?
How can you go wrong when the autographs are made up of
current rookie, farm system stars and first round picks from the 2011 Baseball
Draft? The dual Memorabilia box
toppers are great as are the dual Rookie/Prospect Team Auto cards. Additional hits from USA Baseball are a
bonus. In our box 6 of the autos were of current first round draft picks, 1
from the supplemental first round, 1 former first rounder and 3 rookies. This seems to be in line with expectations,
which should satisfy plenty of prospectors.
Will you keep coming back for more?
This is a “High Risk, High Reward” product but the risk is
greatly decreased by the caliber of prospects/rookies and the volume of
autographs contained in a full hobby box.
This is definitely a multiple box purchase if you can swing it.
Rating
4 1/2 out of 5
2011 Bowman Sterling Baseball is perfect for prospecting current
rising stars.
Review box provided by Topps
Review box provided by Topps
No comments:
Post a Comment