Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Quest for 1998 - Part 4 Some Bowman Cards

My quest for 200 1998 cards continues.

Bowman Previews #3 Ken Griffey, Jr.
This insert set is, perhaps technically, not really part of the Bowman set as it was inserted in 1998 Series 1 Stadium Club at 1 in 12 packs. At this time, Bowman was a pretty late issue, usually coming out in mid-August. Stadium Club was an early issue card. The card looks exactly like the regular issue card except for the numbering. There were 10 cards in the set.
Bowman Golden Anniversary #401 Kevin Burford
It was the Golden Anniversary of the first Bowman set, published in 1949. These parallel cards were randomly inserted at a rate of 1:237 in Series 1 and 1:194 in Series 2 and were serial numbered to 50. Besides the serial number on the back, the only difference from the base set is that the facsimile signature is in gold foil.
These would have been a pretty hard pull. Even this card books for $8. Burford was a 6th round draft pick of the Phillies in 1996. He bounced around the minors until 2004 but never made it to the majors.

Bowman Certified Blue Autographs #27 Ben Grieve
This is a nice looking on-card autograph insert. Even though there were 70 cards in this set they were only inserted at a rate of 1:149.
With this card I'm going to declare that my 1998 Bowman set is complete. I have more than half of the base set and at least one of all the parallels and inserts I'm likely to get. They are:

Bowman (441-card base set)
Bowman Golden Anniversary
Bowman Previews
Bowman Prospect Previews (10-card insert)
Bowman International (441-card parallel insert)
Bowman 1999 ROY Favorites (10-card insert)
Bowman Certified Blue Autographs

There are Gold and Silver parallels of the Blue Autographs but there is pretty much no chance I'm ever going to find one. The Silver were inserted at a rate of 1:992 and the Gold at 1:2,976! Much too long odds for me. Even if I found one, I'm pretty sure I'd not be willing to pay the price.

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