As previously mentioned, I am a big Bowman baseball card fan. Unfortunately, the hobby prices have priced me out of the market. When Bowman flagship releases, I chase down the retail blaster boxes at Target and Wal-Mart. As it comes to Bowman Draft, I have to pass and pick up Cubs singles on eBay, or buy into breaks.
But…Topps released an online exclusive that became a pretty hot chase recently: Bowman Draft 1st Edition. These cards are basically a preview of Bowman Draft with a foil stamp on the front of the card reading, “1st Edition.” We saw a 1st Edition produced earlier this year for the flagship product.
Sold by the pack, the retail price for the online exclusive was $15 for a pack of 10 cards. Autographs are the chase in Bowman and Bowman Draft, but autographs are pretty rare in 1st Edition. Color parallels are much more plentiful with the unnumbered sky blue parallel falling 1 in every 2 packs, on average.
Topps set a maximum order of 24 packs on the website. That is also how many packs come in a box, but Topps only sold by the pack. Some buyers who selected 24 packs did receive a sealed box while many others just got 24 loose packs. I ended up ordering 20 packs. A nice round number.
Normally I do not excited for mail days or follow tracking updates, but this product was an exception. I was eager to break my 20 packs of Bowman Draft 1st Edition. The box was delivered, surprisingly, on a Sunday morning by FedEx. With some errands to run the break had to wait until the evening. Something to look forward to!
Once the dust settled, I pulled a colored parallel in ALL 20 packs. Here is the breakdown: 14 sky blue, 3 blue /150, 1 yellow /75, 1 gold /50, and 1 orange /25. The biggest hit was probably the gold Robert Puason numbered /50.
The most valuable in terms of eBay sold prices would be the Spencer Torkelson base card. At the time of breaking it was selling in the $100 range on eBay. As more product is delivered the prices have been slipping. I have the Torkelson base for sale in my eBay Store for $78 shipped (tip: click here and you can get a 15% off that price in my eBay Store).
My biggest excitement over this product was the Cubs checklist. In all there are seven Cubs on the checklist: Ed Howard, Burl Carraway, Luke Little, Jordan Nwogu, Miguel Amaya, Ryan Jensen, and Brennen Davis.
Through 19 packs I had pulled three of the seven Cubs. The big one I really wanted was missing: Ed Howard. Then came the 20th pack, and the top card was a player in a blue uniform. It was a Cubs card. It was ED HOWARD!
It was nice to see Bowman use a different image for Brennen Davis. His previous two Bowman cards (2019 Bowman Draft and 2020 Bowman) used the same image.
Burl Carraway was the second round draft pick by the Cubs in 2020 out of Dallas Baptist University. Burl’s given name is Ausley Burl Carraway.
The other Cubs 2020 draft pick I pulled was pitcher Luke Little. The 6-foot-8 lefty played at San Jacinto junior college last year and was scheduled to transfer to South Carolina.
The Cubs selected Little in the fourth round. He went viral just before the draft when throwing at the Showcase Baseball Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina.
There, he recorded a 105 mph fast ball. The fastest recorded pitch is 105.1 mph by Aroldis Chapman in 2010 (pitching for the Cincinnati Reds during his rookie season). It will be fun to watch Luke Little in the Cubs organization.