Buyer Beware: 2020 Bowman Platinum Review

There doesn’t seem to be a baseball card product that has gone from scorching hot and flip worthy to ice cold than Bowman Platinum.

Collectors and flippers have been clearing shelves of Donruss football…Donruss football! It seems that everything produced in trading cards is hot and selling. Except Bowman Platinum.

A few years ago Bowman Platinum was released as an online exclusive to Wal-Mart. It was successfully flipped by astute members of the hobby. Yes, Virginia. There were flippers in the hobby before 2020.

Early in the Bowman Platinum run, I was looking for the quick flip. The margins were really tight, so I ended up just opening the boxes. And…I really enjoyed the product. It’s a flashy card, and it has both a veteran and prospect set much like flagship Bowman.

Quickly I learned that the secondary market for Bowman Platinum singles was pretty low, and nine times out of 10 you’ll not get the value back in the boxes you buy. Still, at a $20 blaster price point it was still worth it to me because I really enjoyed the cards and did not care about resale value. It was a fun rip.

Fast forward to 2020, and it took me by surprise when I found out Bowman Platinum was hitting Wal-Mart shelves the first week of November. Typically, Bowman Platinum is released around the first week of July. Since 2020 has been a wacky year, and Wal-Mart carried a new retail exclusive Bowman product – Bowman Chrome Mega Boxes – I did not expect there to be a 2020 Bowman Platinum.

I was excited, and thought maybe I might be able to find some at my local stores. I wasn’t holding my breath since the previous two weeks there had been around a dozen people waiting for the card vendor at my local Wal-Mart. Still…I ventured out on a Friday afternoon and went to my nearest store. Surprisingly, six boxes were on the shelf. The price tag made me raise my eyebrows as these were $45 boxes with 23 cards and a guaranteed autograph. I bought two boxes to check it out, and made my way to the other Wal-Mart store.

This particular store is much larger, and has a much larger trading card section. There was about a dozen of the $45 Bowman Platinum boxes on the shelf while everything else was cleared out save for some Topps Stickers, NASCAR, and hockey.

A Friday night break was in store with excitement in the air. It’s not a common occurrence to find retail sports cards on the shelf these days. Here’s video of my 2020 Blowman Platinum break.

What a bummer break. First off….NO CUBS! Another bummer was that there were a bunch of duplicates from the two boxes I bought, including the chartreuse parallel of Orioles pitcher John Means.

Two chartreuse parallels are inside each box. The others? Yup, also duplicates of Marlins prospect Kameron Misner.

My autograph hits were decent. The bigger name of the two autos was Arizona Diamondbacks prospect Corbin Carroll.

The other I have never heard of – Rockies prospect Terrin Vavra.

Overall, I do like the look of the cards, but buyer beware. Bowman Platinum is definitely not worth its 2020 price point. I would much rather have a blaster box for $20 or even $25 without the guaranteed autograph. The autos are stickers, and these are not sought after autos at all. Give me a few more base cards and I would have been happy.

Another thing I was not happy with was the one pack. You get 23 cards per box, but they come in a single pack. I’d much rather have six packs of four cards.

Bowman Platinum will likely be seen on store shelves for a long time to come, and it’s disappointing that Topps packaged it the way they did this year.