Helping to keep everyone up-to-date on what is coming out and what might be worthy of your time in the Baseball Card Hobby for the current week. Check out our Discord for more discussion on this and any other hobby chatter - Prospects Live Discord.
This week we have one scheduled release - 2023 Bowman Baseball Sapphire Edition. ***Updated details posted below
This post will be updated if more news, product information and/or product drops occur throughout the week.
2023 Bowman Baseball Sapphire Edition
The highly desirable Sapphire version of the 2023 Bowman product is set to release on the Topps website on Wednesday, May 17th. ***Update - As of Wednesday, Topps has delayed the release to Friday, May 19th.
There is only a single configuration - a regular Hobby box. The configuration is not confirmed, but it is relatively safe to assume we are looking at the same as previous years given the odds we have. It is likely to be one guaranteed auto per box with no guaranteed parallels, but Topps may not guarantee anything, just to protect themselves. If you look at the odds, no auto or base parallel is stated to be greater than 1 in 2 boxes. ***Update - Topps posted and took down the page for this product and the Box image showed Topps promising 3 color parallels plus 1 auto per box.
Last year these boxes sold for $199.99 from Topps, a $50 increase from 2021. Price isn’t known at the time of writing, but I am going to guess it is either status quo or an increase all the way up to $249.99. ***Update - Topps posted and then took down a Dutch Auction format for this product, the first time I’ve seen them using this approach to selling product on their website. The page showed a starting price of $850 with a floor of $350. We’ll see if anything changes or not on go live. ******Update - all the details from Wednesday were confirmed by Topps on Thursday. New detail is that there are no customer limits, only a limit of 10 boxes per transaction. Customers can make as many transactions as they want. *************Update - the Dutch Auction made it all the way to the floor price of $350. I heard people say the website crashed, others say that it didn’t actually sell out at that price, and that it did and a wave of people were buying at the floor. Whatever the case, one of Topps’ most desirable products hitting the Dutch Auction floor in their first ever attempt at that type of sale has to be a disappointment for Topps, even if they never admit to it.
The design is what we’ve already seen with the 2023 Bowman full release but given the Sapphire treatment. As far as parallels go, autos still maintain the same parallels, but the base adds a green parallel numbered out of 60. ***Update - Topps posted images of the cards, and if the digital version is anything like the real version, there is a high possibility that, at least for the design, it disappoints. The cracked ice seems to be there, but it seems very subtle, where in most scenarios in the past, it’s usually very prominent.
The checklist is 150 base chrome cards, matching the base chrome cards with the full Bowman release. To get an in-depth look at all of those players with 1st Bowmans, check out the Product Preview. The auto checklist is heavily slimmed down, as is usual. However, in comparison to 2022 Bowman Sapphire, it is a significant reduction, almost being cut in half year over year. Unfortunately the auto checklist is full of non-1st Bowman autos, even if they are of prospects that are strong chases - Jackson Holliday, Brooks Lee, Termarr Johsnon, Elijah Green, Kumar Rocker, and Zach Neto. The Tier 1 1st Bowman prospects we do get autos of here are Cam Collier, Druw Jones, and Junior Caminero. A few strong Tier 2 1st Bowman prospects are here as well, highlighted by Justin Crawford, Matt Mervis, and Michael Arroyo.
I love Sapphire products, and the base cards, especially on the Bowman side, really still hold a fair amount of value for the base versions. This is in part due to the limited print runs and decent grading opportunities. Given the price of the boxes and the challenge to get a positive ROI on a regular basis, I almost always sitting out buying a box or two (it makes a lot more sense if you are buying large quantities of boxes). I do, however, typically buy some singles and/or get into a break or two, which I will likely do again this year. ***Update - with the leaked details, the added color per box make this a more attractive product until you get to the next detail. The Dutch Auction format with a floor price being $150 more than last year makes this product pretty much for higher spenders only, even in breaks. And the likelihood it hits the floor is very low - it probably sells out in the $450 - $500 range. It will likely be a singles-exclusive product for me assuming those prices aren’t ridiculous long term either, but I’m not holding my breath.