Chicago Cubs 2018 Bowman Comes Raining In
Hobby prices for 2018 Bowman are out of this world. Typically, I have hard time forking over $80 for a hobby box of Bowman. This year, you're lucky if you can find a hobby box for DOUBLE that. Online prices are in excess of $160 per box, and my local card shop had a $165 price tag.
Even months out the presale prices were outrageous. I made the decision early on that I was going retail only on Bowman.
Stalking retail outlets every day of release week, I finally found a small stash of three blasters at a local Target on Thursday. But it was Saturday that brought the mother lode. Even though I had visited my nearest Target on Friday afternoon with no Bowman in stock, I checked in before running some errands on Saturday morning. There they were in all of their glory. Six blaster boxes. I took them all.
Then I was off to the other stores. I found more at the next Target. Just a couple blasters and a few hanger packs. I ripped. Later on I wanted to see if Wal-Mart had been stocked. There is one area Wal-Mart that has a really good selection of cards, and it didn't disappoint. More blasters, and more hanger packs. Then the next Wal-Mart was also stocked! Ice Cube said it best...Today Was A Good Day.
Of course I was after a Shohei Ohtani autograph. Who isn't?!? But after that, I am looking for a David Bote Auto. The eBay prices are just insane. I'll wait until things die down and scoop one up for $10 or less. In total, I pulled four autographs. My best? Thomas Hatch 90/99.
I pulled several hanger packs with the camo parallels. Two Cubs were included: Oscar DeLaCruz and Alex Lange. These are pretty cool. I like them much better than the yellow bordered retail exclusives.
I pulled a couple of the Kyle Schwarber Bowman Birthdays inserts.
Adbert Alzolay was tough to come by. In all of my packs I only pulled one Chrome and two paper. Also snagged a Thomas Hatch, two Alex Lange, and three Oscar De La Cruz.
For the veteran paper set Jen-Ho Tseng gets a rookie card. I don't like action pitching photos on vertical cards, but they did it right here. The ball is in the shot and no arms are chopped off.
Look at that Anthony Rizzo smile!
Again, I like when the baseball gets captured in the image. Cool shot of a fielding Kris Bryant.
Great job of getting Alzolay in action on the mound on a vertical card. I much rather have a well cropped pitching image on a vertical card than any horizontal card.
The glove really pops on this Thomas Hatch card.
Bowman's effort on this Oscar De La Cruz card is summed up by the look on his face. Try better next time.
Really excited to see Alex Lange progress. Hopefully he'll be a big contributor soon.
Overall, I'm happy with 2018 Bowman. Not happy with hobby prices, but the retail breaks were fun. I do have all of my non-Cubs cards for sale in my Sportlots store and eBay store. I'm adding more to each...to fund buying more Cubs cards, of course.