Getting it right the second time around
To appreciate 2013 Bowman Sterling, you need to look back at 2012 Bowman Sterling. Which I didn’t write a review for. That means you’ll have to get through a quick 2012 review before we get to the good stuff. Sorry.
2012 Bowman Sterling – Underachieving to the Max
If you can’t see the autographs, try tilting your screen
It was hard to get too excited about 2012 Bowman Sterling. Now without any memorabilia cards, this was an autograph-only release with a token base set. You would expect some high-quality autographs from a set like this. And there they are in that image above. Really. Look closely. Trust me, just look in those big dark spots. See those slightly darker areas? Those are autographs. Yeah, these are some awful cards. Terrible design, terrible colors, and players nobody really cared about by December of 2012. Rookie Kirk Nieuwenhuis was the default Mets Rookie Card autograph in 2012, so he only had a few dozen more interesting autographs on the market at the time. Gavin Cecchini and Kevin Plawecki had their first autographs the month before in 2012 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects, but those were really the only ones anyone needed. Unless there are some sweet refractor autos in here.
Taste the rainbow. Or maybe just something yellow.
Nope, just these. The most common refractor varieties are shown above: base refractors numbered to 199, gold refractors numbered to 50, and black refractors numbered to 25. So much color and variety. Bonus points if you can tell the difference between base and black refractors without looking at the serial numbers. With autographs like this, the Matt Harvey base Rookie Card may be the most interesting card in 2012 Bowman Sterling; Harvey’s only other Topps Rookie Cards are in 2012 Topps Update.
2013 Bowman Sterling – Second Attempt
And that brings us to 2013. On the surface, nothing had changed from 2012. Sterling was once again a premium autograph-only release with a token base set, essentially a chromium version of Bowman Inception with a bigger autograph checklist (plus the aforementioned base set). One look at the cards though will tell you that this is nothing like 2012 Bowman Sterling.
Autographs
This time around, the autograph cards in Sterling are a more visually pleasing portrait orientation with large design elements and a signature background that makes the ink more visible. It’s not going to compete with Bowman Chrome for the most desirable autograph card style, but it stands well enough on its own. On top of that, the player selection is greatly improved from 2012. The two Mets with autographs in Bowman Draft, Dominic Smith and Andrew Church, are here as expected, plus late-season replacement Rookie Card signer Zack Wheeler (on stickers unfortunately). That alone is a modest upgrade over 2012, but then we add the first autographs from L.J. Mazzilli (son of Mets favorite Lee Mazzilli) and the first Mets autographs from Noah Syndergaard (the other big chip in the R.A. Dickey trade along with Travis d’Arnaud, who had his first Mets autographs in 2013 Bowman Inception). Sterling has something unique to offer instead of being filled with leftovers.
And that’s not even considering the refractor autographs. Black refractors are out, replaced with blue refractors at the 25 level. Gold stayed the same, only at the fifth level down instead of the second. Base refractor numbering went down from 199 to 150 and three new levels were added: green at 125, ruby at 99, and orange at 75. The ruby coloring wasn’t quite as distinctive as it could have been, but this was a huge improvement over 2012.
Base Cards
And we haven’t even gotten to the base cards yet. Inserted at a rate of just one per pack (compared to three per pack for autographs), these aren’t easy to get. The three top names from the autograph list show up here: Wheeler, Syndergaard, and Smith.
As for the refractors, the base cards don’t get the three new refractor levels and go straight from base refractors (numbered to 199) to gold refractors (numbered to 50). The lack of common variations and poor scanning results make these the weakest cards in Sterling.
Inserts
We’re not done yet. Next up are a pair of The Duel inserts featuring Dominic Smith and Matt Harvey. Topping it off is a sapphire reprint of David Wright’s Bowman rookie card. Wright joins Jose Reyes as only the second Mets player in this set, which ran throughout all of the Bowman products in 2013. All that’s left are the autograph inserts, most of which are on stickers and all of which are numbered to 50 or less.
The Verdict
As one of the final products of the year, Bowman Sterling is an easy one to overlook. 2012 Bowman Sterling faded into the background, but 2013 Bowman Sterling proved that Topps still had something new to offer after more than two dozen products. Let’s hope that attitude carries over into 2014.
Comments are closed.