Sometimes Prospecting Can Be Bad And Sometimes It Can Be Horrible

Remember this guy?

People were going crazy when this 2010 Bowman Chrome Stephen Strasburg Superfractor sold for $16,403 in May 2010 and it seemed like the hysteria just intensified when Brian Gray paid $25,000 for it in June 2010. When Brian packed it out in one of Leaf’s repack products the card seemed to disappear, well the person who pulled it out of the repack product just put it up for auction using Beckett Auction Services. The auction closed Sunday (9/20) night and after 6 bids it sold for $3,289.

This card lost $21,711 in value in just 5 years, wow talk about a fall from grace.

2010 Bowman Chrome

Topps has released some preliminary images for the 2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball set, scheduled for release October 18, 2010. The set will contain 220 base cards, 180 veterans and 40 rookies. There will be 6 different parallels; Super-Fractor (Hobby Only), Red, Orange, Gold, Blue and Refractor. Each box will contain 1 Autograph, 4 Team USA Baseball and 3 Topps 100 Prospects.

Schedule Release Date: October 18, 2010 (Topps), October 13, 2010 (Blowout Cards)
Box Configuration: 4 cards per pack, 18 packs per box
SRP: $84/per box

Box Break:
3 Autographs
4 Team USA cards
3 Topps 100 Prospects

This is your typical Bowman, a good card with excellent pictures on a simple black (or silver/blue) border. This is what you expect Topps/Bowman and you get what you expect, a great release.

As expected, Stephen Strasburg will be included in the checklist along with autograph and parallel versions.

In an interesting move Topps checklist includes autographs from prospects Tim Beckham, Yonder Alonso and Brett Wallace who all have an exclusive 3-year autograph contract with Razor. Apparently the Razor contract has a clause in it that allows Topps to create autograph cards of the 3 players in the case that the player makes it in to the pros or when the contract runs out in 3 years. There is also rumor that Topps or the players may attempt to buyout the contract with Razor if they do not get called up in time for the release.

This year Topps included Printing Plates, only a total of 1,496 plates are included in the entire run. The plates break down to 4 printing plates (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Black) of each of the base cards and then 4 of each of the Prospects and Team USA sets. Additionally, as a Hobby Exclusive, Bowman is including MLB Logoman Patch Cards of 5 players (I have not seen the checklist yet) #/50 each.

My Thoughts:
This is typical Bowman Chrome, you get what you expect and you expect only the best.

Rating:

This is a great release; I would give this nothing less then 5 out of 5. A classic that looks good and gives you what you want… rookies and prospects.