[nickkniseley]

Hey everyone,

I am new to the baseball collecting scene - other than the old box of cards I dug out a few weeks ago from my parents attic. I've been lurking on the site for a while, trying to get a feel for the hobby again, while buying a few packs and retail boxes here and there. I got a $20 (blaster?) box of Bowman Chrome from Wal-Mart earlier today, and figured I'd post on here to see what you guys thought, and to see if what I pulled was pretty typical for retail, or if I was lucky/unlucky in what I found. Haven't been able to grab a hobby box yet, there's not really anywhere around here to grab one, so one of those will have to wait. Any input for a new collector would be cool too!

Blue refractor - Clay Buchholz /250
Legends in the Making - Trevor Bauer
1st Bowman Chrome Refractors - Wilfredo Tovar, Joel Caminero
Refractors - Chris Carpenter, Brandon Morrow
Future All-Star - Rob Brantley
Base RC - Pomeranz, Jeremy Hefner

and various base.

Not sure how great of a haul, but first time buying the Bowman Chrome, the cards look awesome. Also, the Caminero refractor is a silver border, while the others are sort of a checkered refractor. Is there a difference? Thanks!

[CincinnatiKid]

Not bad at all for a blaster box. The ones that are checkerboard are called X-Fractors and are only avable in the blaster boxes. They are the ones that came in the extra palin silver pack.

Bowman chrome has these different refractors:
•Refractor: 1:4 Packs
•Green Parallel: Retail Packs
•X-Fractor Refractor
•Blue Refractor: #/250
•Purple Refractor: #/199
•Gold Refractor: #/50
•Orange Refractor: #/25
•Red Refractor: #/5
•SuperFractor: 1/1 Hobby Packs Only

Also , the prospect cards have Blue wave and red wave versions that were avable via wraper redemption.

In addtion to the refractors each card has four 1/1 printing plates.

~Michael

[nyyankeesfan28]

Not bad! Checkered refractor is called X-Fractor, as CincinnatiKid said. Some sites to buy hobby boxes are dacardworld.com, blowoutcards.com, pittsburghsports.com, or charmcitycards.com, as you said you don't have anywhere to buy a Hobby box nearby.

[nickkniseley]

Awesome, thanks for the reply! I've been going with the Topps series, but figured I'd try out the Bowman. I hadn't been pulling too much from the Topps, the best has probably been a Morse short print, and a handful of gold parallels.

[nyyankeesfan28]

Yeah, you'll pull a lot better stuff from Hobby boxes than Retail. Better odds and more hits guarenteed per box.

[nickkniseley]

Yeah, I've been checking out some places online, I'm probably looking to wait til the 2013 sets come out to go for a hobby box, I figured it'd be a good place to really start to get into collecting.

[stera8]

Blowout will always be the cheapest. Also since you are going for 2013, next summer mark down Topps Allen & Ginter. I got back into cards this summer after 10 years off (25 now) and it was fun to break. 3 guaranteed hits (jersey cards or autos).

Be careful buying those blasters. I always tell myself that if I buy 3 (adds up to $60) I can buy a hobby box and have guaranteed autos in it. However, I'm a sucker for them

goodluck in your future! and congrats!

[nyyankeesfan28]

I know, I'm a sucker for blasters too for some reason. Ginter is definitely a fun rip.

[nickkniseley]

It is definitely hard to not pick up a blaster when I make a Wal-Mart run, especially since there's no hobby stores nearby, but I am trying to just stick the twenty in my pocket and just put it towards a box. Is there anywhere I can read up on all of the different sets that are coming out and see what the differences will be? The toughest thing getting back into this has been trying to keep track of the different sets and what the differences are.

[RobbinsDynasty]

BLOWOUT has a Release Dates sections and will let you know release dates and also when clicking the set will give you overview plus a current price point at which you can reserve with a down payment. Was thinking off putting a down payment on a case myself. Now just to see which one.