The next Bowman product of the 2012 season will be released soon in 2012 Bowman Platinum baseball. With some of the issues kinked out and a better looking lineup of potential hits than the past, the third year of Platinum looks to be the best year of Platinum seen this far.
Every box of Bowman Platinum features 20 packs and 5 cards per pack. With autographs from some of the hottest prospects in the game, it’s one of the products that prospectors like to crack open to try and find that diamond in the rough in prospects.
Each box will contain 2 autographed refractors as well as one autographed relic card. Including these, you may also find redemptions for full game worn items from the Arizona Fall League. That’s right, full sized items. Not cut up and put into cards. Topps has done a great job with acquiring these items across all sports recently, and this is just another great addition to their products.
With parallels galore and tons of autographed content, you may ask…what else can I chase after? The new Purely Platinum autographs contains 1/1 autographs of metal cards with a gold autograph on them. Whether they are platinum or not, we don’t know, but it’s a cool addition to the product.
Get your prospecting and rookie fix on with 2012 Bowman Platinum baseball, releasing July 25, 2012.
Check out the 2012 Bowman Platinum checklist to see the players you can pull from the product.
As always, each pack will also feature one mini card and 7 regular cards. You will find mini inserts as well as the mini parallels you have grown accustomed too, except Bazooka backs will not be making a return. Instead, you will find “Baseball backs” in their place. A new addition, direct from Upper Deck’s book, is the inclusion of Entomology style cards where you may find a redemption for dead bugs embedded into cards. Upper Deck decided to end the bugs, and Topps is picking up right where they left off.
You’ll be able to find 2012 Topps Allen & Ginter on July 11, 2012, for around $85. And don’t forget, crack the Ginter code once again and Topps will spoil you with fantastic rewards.
Every pack guarantees one Crowd Pleaser autograph, one On the Rise autograph, and one relic numbered to 399 or less. Plus 1:4 boxes contains an extra relic as well. I’m happy to see the guaranteed two autographs in this product because the checklist is pretty solid.
And of course, there are some pretty autograph relics included as well. The product looks much better than it did last year and I can’t wait to see some breaks of the product. I also can’t wait to see some of these bat knobs. With 100 bat knobs from 100 different players, those are sure to be a hit.
Each 24 pack box will feature 2 autographs and 2 relics cards. Each pack has 8 cards in it. The base set is 220 cards deep with 50 short printed variation cards. The only parallels are the gold parallels numbered to 50 and the 1 of 1 printing plates.
The relics consist of game used jerseys and bats and manufactured logo patches. There are jumbo patch parallels, however they are just numbered to 5. It doesn’t look there are any autographed relics according to the sell sheet which they had a few of last year I believe.
The basic structure of the set at 350 cards, minis, and paper parallel inserts is just about the same. You’ll get just about everything that appeared in last year’s product once again, including some new hits. Every box will contain 4 hits at 2 autographed and 2 game used relics per box.
Some new inclusions in the “hit” realm are patch cards and 1887 Indian head pennies embedded into the cards. I know I’ve given Topps flak for embedding coins into cards but I like the 1887 pennies in here. Also included is the “Gypsy Kings” insert set, kind of mirrored off the “Gypsy Queens” from last year. These “Gypsy Kings” are a fictional 1887 team with “autographs” and “relics”. Again, if these count as one of my hits when opening this product I would be pissed.
