2013 Bowman Platinum Baseball Highlights (Phillies Edition)

Bowman Platinum Baseball is back!

This release snuck up on me this year - I didn't realize it had hit the streets until browsing Wal-Mart shelves over the weekend.  I've decided not to buy the set retail this year, instead, I am going straight to the secondary market for cards I want.  It doesn't feel entirely right, but I've bought enough cards at the store to-date and think I've earned a pass here.

Instead of doing a full checklist review, I decided to review a few highlights by sharing the cards I'm either bidding on, or have already bought..

Base Set - 100 cards, mix of prospects and veterans.  There are three base card parallels: Sapphire (1:10 packs), Gold (1:5 packs) and Ruby (1:20 packs). I scooped up one of each Chase Utley version...

The Utley's (Clockwise): Base, Sapphire, Gold, Ruby

It seems like Maikel Franco's finally made it in the market.  His prospect auto, refractor cards have been selling consistently in the $15-20 range (parallel versions running a little higher).  On the reverse, the market is showing signs of saturation for Jesse Biddle auto cards.  His cards can be easily purchased in the $5-range.

Parallels include: Green (#/399), Blue (#/199), Red (#/25), Gold (#/50) and Atomic (#/5) refractors.

Maikel Franco, Bowman Platinum Prospect Auto
Maikel Franco, Bowman Platinum Prospect Auto
Green refractor parallel
Diamonds in the Rough spotlight some promising prospects (as identified by Baseball America).  The subset includes Lakewood's own, Carlos Tocci.  Through the years, we've seen some prospects, like Tocci payoff (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley) and some that don't (Matt Rizzotti, David Buchanan).  Here's to hoping he ends up grouped with later.

Carlos Tocci
Bowman Platinum, Diamonds in the Rough