2010 Bowman Baseball
Hobby Box Price: $70Jumbo Box Price: $130
Good: Stephen Strasburg 1st Bowman Auto, Team USA Cards, Bryce Harper 1st Bowman Chrome card, One of the best bang for you buck products of all-time, Jason Heyward Auto, Future's Game Triple Relics numbered to 99, Excellent chrome card design.
Bad: Veteran base cards aren't very appealing, a few odd combinations in the "Expectations" insert, Orange refractors are ugly, hard to find a box to demand.
Bottom Line: I think there's a chance that 10 years from now, we may look at 2010 Bowman as the product that saved baseball cards and the hobby as a whole. A combination of Topps getting the exclusive MLB, MiLB, and USA Baseball licenses, and perhaps the greatest rookie class of all-time seems to have created the perfect storm.
Here's the bottom line, never in the history of modern sports cards has a product offered a return on investment that even comes close to rivaling 2010 Bowman. It hasn't even been out for two weeks and there have already been atleast 10 cards to sell for over $1,000 on ebay and hundreds to sell for over $100. This is a $5 a pack product we are talking about, not Exquisite Collection!
Design: 4.5/5
The card design of the Bowman Prospects / Bowman Chrome Prospects is among Bowman's best. The light blue color theme that is incorporated into the prospect cards creates a classic look to the futuristic card design. I also liked how they switched it up and used a white border on the chrome prospect auto's.
The base card design used for the veterans and 2010 rookies is not very appealing, but after seeing the Chrome base rookie auto's, the base cards will translate to chrome nicely.
Checklist: 5/5
The checklist is utterly stacked! Heyward, Strasburg, Ackley, Tate, Castro, Chapman, the list goes on and on. They even found a way to fit guys like Mike Stanton, Desmond Jennings, and Michael Moustakas into the product! Then when you figure in the Team USA cards, you add Bryce Harper and a who's who of the upcoming 2010 MLB Draft. If you are a prospector or rookie collector, this checklist is the type of checklist that dreams are made of!
Value: 5/5
2010 Bowman is the most valuable mid-level product I have ever opened. Simply put, $5 per pack/$15 per jumbo pack products don't have cards in them that sell for thousands of dollars! There is a Stephen Strasburg Superfractor up to nearly $10,000 on eBay and there is still 4 days left in the auction! Even the worst 2010 Bowman Box possible is still a great box. If I could give the value of this product a 10/5 I would, but that's not how review systems work.
Enjoyment: 5/5
This is one of the most enjoyable products I've ever opened. Prospecting has never been better than 2010 Bowman. The one thing I would highly recommend is ripping a Jumbo box instead of the standard 24-pack hobby box. The Jumbo is where the $1,000+ cards are. Either way, if you enjoy baseball and baseball cards, you will love this product.
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Ben Barron | Jul 14, 2010 | Reply
2010 Bowman might be the greatest baseball prospects series of all time. It has all the top guys Strasburg, Heyward, Harper etc. I bought two boxes and got some great cards out of my first box. The second box wasn't as good but I still got some nice cards. So I guess the hits are hit or miss. However as stated above this is the easiest product to get a good return on investment that I have ever seen. I give a 5 out of 5
Jacob Wagner | Jul 14, 2010 | Reply
I would give this product a 5/5 because of how many awesome rookies there are! Because I'm a prospector, I absolutely love this set.