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The box: 2017 Bowman Chrome Mini baseball (factory set & bonus packs)
Where to buy: BlowoutCards.com
Packs per box: 3
Cards per pack: 10
Cards in this box: 303 (273 cards in set, 30 bonus parallels)
Base set completion:
273 of 273 (100 percent)
Duplicates: 0
Notable players on base cards – Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger (2), Kevin Maitan, Yoan Moncada, Nick Senzel, Alex Bregman, Rhys Hoskins, Ronald Acuna, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Mickey Moniak, Rafael Devers, Gleyber Torres, Andrew Benintendi,, Eloy Jimenez, Dansby Swanson … and nearly all other rookies and prospects from 2017 Bowman and 2017 Bowman Chrome
Insert cards: 30 (all in gallery with some base)
Refractors (11) – Jorge Alfaro, Raimel Tapia, Bryan Reynolds, Yusniel Diaz, Jake Bauers, Oscar De La Cruz, Andy Ibanez, Adam Ravenelle, Max Schrock, Yeudy Garcia, Takahiro Norimoto
Orange Refractors (1) – Joe Musgrove (/25)
Gold Refractors (3) – Hunter Dozier, Hunter Renfroe, Richard Urena (/50)
Bowman 70th Blue Refractors (3) – Ryan O’Hearn, Andrew Sopko, Wander Javier (/70)
Green Refractors (5) – Tyler Glasnow, Francis Martes, Tomoyuki Sugano, Matt Manning, Brent Honeywell (/99)
Blue Shimmer Refractors (7) – Aaron Judge, Alex Bregman, Domingo Acevedo, Kyle Funkhouser, Adrian Morejon, Khalil Lee, Travis Demeritte
Autographs/Memorabilia: None
What’s Buzz-worthy: Blue Shimmer Refractors for the win. Aaron Judge and Alex Bregman made appearances in that color among the three bonus packs found here. This new format for the set is one that’s pretty appealing with an oversized set box including another vibrantly designed set box inside along with a wedged display for three mini packs where all the bonus cards are found. As mentioned earlier, this is a mini version of all rookies and prospects from 2017 Bowman and 2017 Bowman Chrome — it’s skip-numbered and the cards are all mixed within the set but it seems cleaner in both its printing and approach compared to past sets like this. Packaging the bonus cards away from the basic cards seems like a good move that will allow re-sellers to move a sealed set (the inner box is wrapped) if they only want the parallels. The assortment found here should be close to the norm as the only cards on the odds panels are Red Refractors (one in three sets), Superfractors (one in 21 sets) and printing plates (one in six sets). If you land notable names on those cards — or really any numbered parallels — you could do pretty well. If you’re one who doesn’t hit Bowman hard during the year, this is a good way to grab a set, get some of that chase and then get all the big names — just on smaller cardboard. I’d bet that the print run on these can’t be as high as standard Chrome cards, so that’s perhaps a longer-term plus, too. Although this is not intended to primarily be a “rip” it was a fun one.
Product Grade: A
Box Grade: A
Fun Grade: A-
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