First Look: 2012 Bowman Platinum baseball
By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
The third time’s the charm — at least in some boxes — for Bowman Platinum.
Topps unveiled the basic product information and preview images for 2012 Bowman Platinum on Thursday, and new this year — the third for the brand — will be redemption cards good for full game-used items from the Arizona Fall League.
As in memorabilia pieces, game-used caps, game-used baseballs, bases and more. In all, there are 53 redemption cards to be found for items — including at least one for Bryce Harper.
Set to arrive on July 25, Platinum will include two Refractor autographs and one autographed Refractor Relic card in every box. As many as 35 prospects will be signing for the product, each with 1/1 printing plates and SuperFractors, while there will also be Atomic Refractors numbered to five and Red, Gold, Blue and Green Refractors numbered to 399 or less. Two of the most notable names here? Anthony Rendon and Gerrit Cole.
Over on the signed Relics side, the same parallels will exist — but the most-plentiful cards will be limited to just 199 copies. Notables here? Harper and Mike Trout for starters.
For non-prospect sigs, there will be 35 Purely Platinum autos — 1/1s signed in gold ink only found in hobby packs — 10 dual auto cards limited to 50, 10 triple autos limited to 10. Want something even bigger? Try a Hexagraph book card — six autos in tow — or one of 35 Jumbo Patch Relics. The first Hexagraph teased this year? A card with Trevor Bauer, Danny Hultzen, Gerrit Cole, Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw sigs — that’s a lot of firepower from the mound.
Continuing something that will debut with 2012 Bowman will be the Bowman Black program — there will be 25 players signing cards to be found here, each limited to 25 copies. The biggest chase? A 1/1 Harper game-used bat nameplate card from one of his Arizona Fall League gamers.
On the insert card side, there will be a line of Cutting Edge Stars — diecut cards that have autograph and Relic versions to be found as well — for MLB veterans as well as some prospects.
The base set will consist of 100 MLB veterans and rookies, while there also will be a 100-card prospect set printed on Chrome stock to chase. These cards will be found with parallels — X-Fractors, Greens, Blues, Golds, Reds, Atomic and Supers for the prospects — and parallels for the standard set comprised of Gold, Emerabls and Ruby cards as was done last year.
Some of the notable signers for this one? Bubba Starling, Dylan Bundy, Justin Verlander, Matt Moore, Brett Lawrie, Michael Pineda, Robinson Cano, Jesus Montero, Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Eric Hosmer, Paul Goldschmidt, Felix Hernandez and Ryan Zimmerman to name a few.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
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As long as they are still doing the hard signed prospects, I’ll do the set.
Of course it would be nice if all the redemptions were redeemed form the 2011 set
and I hope they do not do another mystery mess redemption. All that fuss and expense
with everyone getting the same guy but all the sellers acting like you could get a Harper
was really, really, terrible.
Two on-card autos per box.
Cards look great. BUT, the main question is the checklist. Is it packed full of $.99 autographs like 2011? That product was a disaster.
I can deal with the “$.99” autos as long as I don’t have to shell out to much for the main
card. I paid a bit too much for the Harper and I was glad Strasberg was not in the prospects
the first year since he too would have been a bit pricey. It always feels weird to pay more for
a prospect when I can get an established HOF player (sometimes dead) for less money.
For instance, you can get Nolan Ryan all day long for $100 or less, but Strasberg was costing
close to twice as much and Ryan is a hard act to top.
The last 2 platinum sets were pretty much crap. If you didn’t get a prime auto, you didn’t get anything. I’m in the process of getting Topps to replace 35 misscut cards that came out of a single 2011 box. What are the chances they’ll actually feel guilty about shipping a box with 1/3 of the cards being totally worthless?
I love the look of this set and I’m sure the top end autos/relics will be sweet, but I took it out of my budget for this year. I’m not even going to try.
they put on card autos in platinum and stickers in sterling????? no thanks Topps isn’t getting my money
Richard… if Nolan Ryan had a RC AUTO card..it would dwarf Strasburg. Strasburg’s prices are because they are RC Autographs.plus the hype.
A auto of Marlon Byrd or Edwin Encarnacion just dont excite me a whole lot even i they put a piece of game used skid on it!
Chris did you hear anything about any cert. auto cards from the 2011 under armor all-america game? The reason i ask is my nephew played in it and signed cards the day of the game for topps. he was told they would be inserted in this product.
Still waiting on my redemptions from 2011 Platinum Bowman. What the F? I like the bid auto’s, but I hate Topps redemptions. I will not by boxes, just singles on Ebay. Redemptions have killed my love for collecting.