Bowman 1990-2000

Last week, The Night Owl featured Bowman cards from 2001-2010, mainly to show what a rut Bowman has been in for the past ten years. Every year features a variation of black and red and frankly many of the designs are boring. Well, what about the 10 years before that? In the 1990's Bowman had a much more varied design from year to year.

1990 Bowman Bernie WilliamsNot much different from the 1989 set, except that the card was standard size. A nice clean design with a large photo and a white border. The cards were printed on gray card stock with minimum gloss.

1991 Bowman - Chipper Jones
Pretty similar design to 1990, still on gray card stock, no gloss.

1992 Bowman Carlos Delgado
A revolutionary change in design. Now on white card stock with a glossy finish front and back. The back also featured a photograph. This Carlos Delgado card was a hot card in 1992. For some reason which I can't remember, my local card shop gave me a free pack of Bowman and this card was in it.

1993 Bowman Derek Jeter
Another hot card but not much design change from 1992. The photo on the back was larger.

1994 Bowman Paul LoDuca
Another revolutionary design change. This is the only Bowman set to feature a full bleed photo. This is also the first Bowman card to feature foil. I always liked this set.

1995 Bowman Don Mattingly
Bowman went back to white borders in 1995 but kept the foil. The big change this year was rookie cards featuring full foil printing. This is also the first year that Bowman put a team logo on the front of the card.

1996 Bowman Barry Bonds
This is another Bowman set I always liked. The cards feature a weaved background and red foil. This is the first year that Bowman made a concerted effort to differentiate rookie from veteran cards by color. The backs of the veteran cards were blue and the backs of the rookie cards was green.

1997 Bowman Jeff Bagwell
The black and red design makes its first appearance in 1997. The rookie cards were black and blue. This will be the norm for Bowman from here on out.

1998 Bowman Jimmy Rollins
The theme from 1997 is continued but a bit more subtle. The rookie cards, like this one, featured a blue border around the photo and a blue background for the player position. The veteran cards had red instead of blue. Of more importance, this is the first Bowman set to feature a facsimile signature.

1999 Bowman Dante Bichette
Black and red for veterans and black and blue for rookies. This is the first time the facsimile signature is in a frosted box, which will become common. The wood-grained black sets this card off from the black and red designs to come.

2000 Bowman Tino Martinez
In 2000, Bowman took a bit of a break from the black and red with a stunning innovation, gray and sort of red. Back to gold foil. The rookie cards have blue borders and a blue area around the player name.