2012 Bowman Sterling Baseball Cards

Love this product! Pulled the 1/1 Yu Darvish autograph RC nd redeemed it! I cannot wait for Topps to ship it!

I got the Sterling Silver Gerrit Cole redemption card. I can’t wait to see what it looks like since there aren’t any pics available. I am not even sure if it has an autograph on it or not. #1/1 woo-hoo!

Amazing product… definitely worth the money. The only problem is I don’t have the money to spend.

Good: 18 hits per box. Product centered around prospects and rookies. Almost every card in the box is either a rookie or prospect. Lots of 2012 draft picks. Players shown in their MLB uniforms. On-card Autographs.

Bad: Hard to see autograph due to dark background. Steep price to pay for box for likely low secondary market return. Several prospects from past years included, such as Francisco Lindor.

The Bottom Line: 2012 Bowman Sterling Baseball is a great release for prospect collectors, but it doesn’t give you the excitement of pulling veteran players. The cost is also high. You have a good chance at pulling a top prospect, however the price of these cards is rather low for the price you pay per box. If you’re someone who’s willing to take the wait-and-see approach, then this is a solid product (but you may be sitting on a hefty investment for a while). That unknown prospect autograph you pulled could end up being the top prospect in baseball in a few years. With the price of boxes at around $300, either way, this is a product that probably isn’t worth busting a single box. It is more geared towards case breaking where there’s a higher chance of getting a low-numbered parallel.

Staff Rating: 3.0/5.0

Card Design: 3.0/5.0
The design for Bowman Sterling was changed completely in 2012. It finally features on-card autographs for the most part, which is a positive. The bad part is that it can be hard to see since the players’ blue signature as it is on a dark surface. I’m not a fan of the dark background, and think the problem even exists with the base cards. The good thing about the base cards though is that they actually look like they should be coming out of a high end product. The set still has parallels for the base and base autographs, so player collectors can go after the rainbow of a specific athlete.

We did pull one redemption, but based on the fact that there were 18 autographs pulled, getting one redemption isn’t the worst thing in the world. That said, it would be great if Topps could eventually have redemption-free products.

While I commend Topps for overhauling the design in this product, overall, I think there are still lots of improvements that can be made.

Checklist: 4.0/5.0
The checklist is solid. With over 150 current rookies and prospects, there’s a lot of variety. Bowman Sterling features some of the best and brightest prospects in baseball such as Joey Gallo and David Dahl. They’re paired alongside top rookies like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and more. The standard rookie card checklist is solid with guys like Matt Moore, Yu Darvish and Trevor Bauer. Overall, the checklist has a good amount of young players with a lot of potential, so even with the product lacking the type of value you’d like to see in a high-end box, there are a lot of top young players to pull.

Value: 2.0/5.0
The value is for Bowman Sterling is just not there this year, and I think it has something to do with oversaturating the product with too many autographs. It’s having a hard time competing with other Bowman-branded products. Most of the stuff in this set will require lots of time to gauge an overall return. That’s tough with such a high-priced box. Overall, I just don’t believe there is much money to be made unless you pull a very rare card. Sticking to the secondary market will be the best approach for many collectors.

The Fun Factor: 3.0/5.0
With all the hits that you can pull from Bowman Sterling, busting a box is fun, especially for prospectors and team collectors. However, if you prefer to open a box that features some of the top veteran players, look elsewhere. This is a factor for me as I prefer a mixture of prospects, rookies and veterans. This is a great example of a product that Topps suits to a specific market.

I want to give the product a 4-Star rating, but then that would diminish the rating of products that are “thisclose” to great.. 18 Autos… nice, but much like the 10 ‘graphs one can snare out of the Valiant release…the volume diminished the end-product. The checklist buoys the rating a bit, but I LOVE auto/relic cards. I refer to a design such as 5-Star as opposed to Triple Threads Unity. But this is not that sort of product, and I get that this is a ramped-up Bowman Chrome…but Bowman Chrome Jumbo is a difficult act to follow. The Jumbo boxes of Chrome have a great mix of numbered parallels and short-printed auto rooks. Again, this feels like a pricey Valiant or Ultimate Draft Baseball.
Topps had better get it’s act together because for better or worse, love them or hate them… Panini North America is GOING to jump into the game with both feet and snag the rights to use logos, team names and pictures of the athletes in MLB Uniforms.

i struggled on if this is a 2 or 3 star product. ended on 3 i guess, to be kind, and as the overall check list looks solid.

the card design isn’t as appealing as some other high price point cards. value of a sterling base auto will not be much more valuable if at all from a ’12 platinum auto, which is a mid range price product. personally i like the look of the ’12 platinum cards more so then these. i will say i do like most of the action shots used in this product, good quality player photos. as others have said, ebay is saturated with these cards currently. bowman is really diluting the auto values, but flourishing in sales i’m sure. go for a jumbo draft box and a platinum box for about the same price as one box of sterling. you’ll get a few less autos but the big hit values are about the same and card design’s are better as well.

PEOPLE WHO LIKE AUTO OR PROSPECTS WILL LOVE IT… I LIKE COLLECTING PROSPECT, BUT I HAVE ALL OF THE GUY OR MOST ANYWAY…. TOPPS NEED TO START ADDING BETTER AUTO”DON’T BE FRIED TO SPEND MY HARD EARNED MONEY FOR GREAT AUTOS… LIKE WIL MYERS HIS ONLY BIG AUTO IS 2010 BOWMAN CHROME… I THINK I’M GONNA WAIT FOR IT TO DIE DOWN WITCH I THINK IT WILL AND THEN I’LL GET THE GUYS I WANT..1 THINK, THEY LOOK GREAT ,WHAT A SHAME TO WASTE ON A LOT OF REPRINTS….

Two star mainly because the base set design is beautiful.

This product, for me, is pointless. The cards look nice, 18 autos per box is fun; but this just over saturates the market for prospect autographs. There’s not many additional prospects featured that are not in other Bowman products. (Aside from Chris Heston which I am excited about.) Ideally, it would be great to see these inserted in another Bowman product – but Topps wouldn’t make near as much money off of it. I’m sure this product will drop significantly in price after release and may cause some of the other prospect autos to drop as well.

I can’t wait to break this product. Tons of autos per box makes it a more fun break for everyone. No relics is a big plus for me, just b/c it seems unless you are talking about hall of fame legends you can pick up anyone’s relic card for a fraction of the price of a pack. Price point is great for opening on your own or getting in a break.

do you know if the Auto Boxloaders Set Checklist is like years past, the single lose pack in the box that contain in past a relic? is this now an auto pack of only players listed for this checklist? thanks

Thats quite the jump in the parallels mentioned at the top..from #50 to #199? Seriously who comes up with that? Doesn’t even make sense. They keep putting some of the same prospects? if u can call them that anymore, in all their products with some who shouldn’t even be called prospects. The are so many better players they could use, but also that are missing. Carrea and Buxton are limited again. Teveras? As someone said above some of these autos are going to go for less than $4-$5. Just way to hefty a price tag for the roster

Bowman Sterling cards are just plain SICK. They have been my favorite cards ever since i started collecting. I wish it had more game used memorabilia though.

Well priced this year, will definitely bust a box or 2 :)

I guess I’m going to take the plunge! I’ve wanted this for a long time and finally getting it as a Xmas present. However looking on EBay at the cards listed I’m nervous to do this. So many players that aren’t worth much at all. And with the Auto market so big now, cards that once sold for $15-$20 go for $3- $8 And looking at the limited checklist there are plenty of players in that category. But I guess it’s why u buy. In search of that sweet card. Question..Are there variations to this box. I read someone saying they just do the prospects. Was he just saying he just collects the prospects and sells or gets rid of the rest? Or are there separate Rookie and Prospect boxes? Thanks and always a pleasure being a member here.

I, for one, can’t wait for the Sterling to hit the streets. I just wish it wasn’t so close to Christmas. Damn Santa Claus and kids don’t understand Daddy needs his Bowman Sterling!!!

ok, checked last years sell sheet info- THIS YEARS HAS MORE HITS AND ALL AUTOS! sweet! so maybe relics wont play any part, it will all depend on price! thanks for letting me comment! take care

i dont remember the product being that short in terms of number of total cards for the price of a box, i do however recal paying a pretty penny for a box!lol but none the less i think no relics might hurt attraction to product a little but the autos look really nice! and with exception to harper and darvish, i dont think the most recent draft class was better than the last 2. i will buy some just because, assumeing its at a good price!