2012 Bowman Baseball Card Box Break Recap And Review

Bowman Baseball is consistent and familiar.  Very little changes from year to year.  For 2012 Bowman Baseball, Bryce Harper returns as the face of the box along with newcomer Garrit Cole.  While Harper cards are still commanding high prices on the secondary market, it's Yu Darvish who steals the show with the top prices being paid for this release of Bowman cards.  If Bowman has been a part of your collection in the past, you will want to get in on this year’s set too.  If you are new to Bowman, you will find this a nice set to put together.

Bowman Baseball falls under our classification of trading cards. 2012 Bowman Baseball can be found in a variety of retail and hobby configurations.  This review is based on a hobby box which contains 24 – 10 card packs and features one autographed Bowman Chrome in every box.

Here is a look at some of the cards we pulled.

Base Set

 Yu Darvish, front and back

 Jose Bautista, Robinson Cano, Chipper Jones

Buster Posey, Albert Pujols, Ichiro

 Justin Verlander, Dustin Ackley, David Ortiz

 David Wright, Ryan Braun, David Price

 Evan Longoria, Prince Fielder, Joe Mauer

Prospects - 1st Bowman Card

 Gerrit Cole, front and back

 Danny Hultzen, Tyler Gagnon, Francisco Lindor

Chrome Prospects

 Gerrit Cole, Julio Rodriguez, Francisco Lindor

 Rookie Davis, Michael Brady, Josh Bell

Bowman's Best

 Justin Verlander, Matt Moore

 Bowman's Best Prospects

 Rymer Liriano, Joe Panik

Parallels

International

 Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Johnson, Emilio King

Gold

 Jose Reyes, Cliff Lee, Matt Kemp

 Todd Helton, Mark Trumbo, Derek Jeter

 Brad Peacock, Ian Kinsler, Adrian Gonzalez

Blue #/500

 Ivan Nova, Cliff Lee

Orange #/250

Greg Billo

Blue Chrome #/250

Tyler Gagnon

Silver Ice

Mike Moustakas

Chrome Prospect Autograph

Cheslor Cuthbert

Overall Look

Bowman has always had a straightforward design. Not much has change this year.  The black border on the base cards from last year has been replaced with a white border this year.  Chrome cards are sharp and inserts are where most of the design elements come into play. The Ice cards, silver and red, are standouts. There are fewer inserts this year and a wider variety of hits which all look great. 

Quality and Variety of Players and Subsets.

The best of the MLB and a variety of primed prospects and young hopefuls make for a good mix. 

Do the hits hold up?

In additional to rainbow hunting, the variety of different hits makes this year’s Bowman standout.  If you happen to pull one of the 10 Golden Contracts that are good for a Yu Darvish Autographed Baseball and entry into a drawing for the grand prize of $500 and your own 2013 Bowman Baseball Card, I will look at you with envy and distain.  You can keep the ball and the money; I just want to be on that card.

Will you want to collect them all? 

This is a nice sized set to build with the option of expansion into the different colors.

Rating

4 1/2 out of 5

2012 Bowman Baseball delivers again, this time with a wider variety of hits to pull.  It is a consistent favorite of card collectors.


Review box provided by Topps