deepbluejacket
Verified Trader,
The 1992-93 Bowman set is one of those strange hobby stories of the early 1990s. It is a tale of a set that no one wanted suddenly becoming extremely valuable. I'm going to explore that a bit today as well as delve into more esoteric details, but before we can talk about 1992, we should spare a moment to briefly discuss its predecessors.
1990 and 1991 Bowman
No one cares about these sets. That's a very strong statement. In general, someone cares about everything. So when I say no one without any qualifiers, I mean it. NO ONE cares about these sets.
Bowman was an experiment in blandness cooked up by Topps. "What if we create a multi-sport set that uses the same design for each sport? And we'll take a brand known for its unusual size, and we'll strip it of that. Also, this brand will have zero history with most of the sports involved."
That's Bowman. Topps produced a huge amount of 1990 Bowman hockey to no fanfare. The 264 card set piled up everywhere. Even the inclusion of an Ed Belfour rookie card couldn't move this redundancy. In 1991, they expanded the set to a bizarre 429 cards, except the hobby still hadn't absorbed the prior issue. Few ordered it; few missed it. You'd be forgiven if you forgot it existed.
With hobby interest at zero (I was going to say near zero, but no, it was absolute zero), Topps retooled for 1992 and decided to upgrade the set to 'premium', although it still looked identical across all sports. Would anyone care this time?
1992-93
Initially, no. The set debuted in Beckett's January 1993 issue with a price tag of $25-35, the same price as Ultra's Series 1 despite being nearly twice the size. It looked destined for obscurity. Then something weird began to happen. Each month, it would go up a little. $45, $60, $75. Month after month it was gaining, but it was doing so without any commentary. Beckett had nothing to say. The thought occurred to me that an experiment was being conducted. "If we just raise the prices on something no one collects, what would happen?"
Finally, in June, Beckett broke the silence and dedicated its Weather Report to it. Now we were told that some of the cards were short printed and that the entire product was produced at unheard of levels - low levels. Now the set soared to a hi book of $175 and two of the singles hit $15. As we entered the summer months and new product tailed off, how high could Bowman go? $200? $250? Dare we dream of $300?
Try $475! The set would peak in October 1993 with a range of $350-475 and short printed singles reaching as high as $55! Brian Bellows's SP launched to $40 for some reason...was it perceived to be shorter short printed? No idea. Most other SPs of his ilk were closer to $20.
Well, folks, I have recently acquired this fabled set. Let's now take a closer look.
The set was originally intended as 441 cards with 396 base cards and 45 foil cards. That number was bumped to 442 when a base Eric Lindros was added. (He is not listed on the checklists.) Cards were distributed in packs of 15 cards, in boxes of 36 packs, and in cases of 16 boxes. I do not have the original SRP for you, but I suspect it was the same as Stadium Club ($1.49? $1.99?).
The cards are now on improved stock and have a glossy finish. The only thing unique about Bowman is that it breaks down a player's stats against his opponents. It will also provide pronunciation help for names it thinks you can't pronounce. Names like Gretzky, which you might have never heard aloud.
The player selection is meh. Topps proved itself incredibly loyal to the players who graced their cards in the 1980s, so this set is veteran heavy. Rookie cards are few and far between, although in their mild defense, sets like 1991-92 Parkhurst Series 2 had spoiled 1992-93's rookie crop for everyone. That said, Bowman included precious few of those players anyway.
Here's a good demonstration. 1991-92 was a tumultuous year for the Boston Bruins, who were decimated by injury. Many veterans cycled through until reinforcements arrived from the Olympic squads and junior teams. Players like Joe Juneau, Glen Murray, Steve Heinze, and Ted Donato immediately slotted in as regulars for the playoffs. But Bowman opted to give only Juneau a card. It was far more important to represent the players who lost their jobs to them, like Andy Brickley and Brent Ashton. Most amusing of all is Barry Pederson, who retired in season.
TRIVIA TIME!
The card backs show how much damage each player did against other teams. Can you guess the player who did the most damage to one individual team? How many points did he put up, and against whom? Answers below!
Putting on the Foil
The foil cards were an interesting concept. 44 of them honored every player named to the All-star game and the 45th honored Mario Lemieux's Conn Smythe trophy. The backs of the All-Star cards showed how each player did before and after the game (or at least before and after the halfway mark...unclear to me the specific point.)
These cards fell one per pack. Therefore, it was impossible to get a complete set from just one box. To make matters worse, 18 of the cards were short-printed!
Eric Lindros
This card debuted at $7.50 and peaked at $35. It would be safe to say that the card is short printed, but it's impossible to know for sure or by how much. It doesn't seem that hard to find. It should also be noted that thieves stole many of these cards from Topps before the coating was applied. If you have an unvarnished Lindros, you've got hot goods!
The Print Run
So just how rare is this set? Beckett now reports that a grand total of 2000 cases were produced. So if we do the math, that's 2000 cases * 16 boxes * 36 packs *14 base cards for 16,128,000 base cards. If we divide by the original 396 cards, that gives us about 40,727 copies per card. We know Lindros dilutes this a bit, but even if he was produced in equal numbers, that's 40,625.
The foil, at just one card per pack, is more scarce. There are only 1,152,000 copies total. And if the SPs exist at a precise ratio of 1:2, then we can calculate that each SP has 16000 copies and each regular has 32000. (There are 18 SPs and 27 'normals'.) I've never seen a sheet, so I don't know how many cards were on each one. The numbers suggest 2 sheets of 36 cards with 27 appearing on both sheet. A standard 132 sheet could not produce a 1:2 ratio, but no one said that's the case.
Therefore, we can estimate that 16000 is about the maximum amount of complete sets available. That's a lot by today's standards, but in 1993? That's genuinely scarce. And as there was no internet to facilitate collecting, you pretty much had to bust boxes...if you could find one. Getting a box of this today is hard to do and it doesn't come cheaply.
Variants
This is also the rare post 1990 set that has a variant. Vincent Damphousse's foil all-star card is found with and without the name of his team on the card back. My guess is this not a correction, but a variation. If my supposition about the foil sheets is true, one of the sheets had a copy with it and the other didn't.
Another odd thing is that some of the card backs from the C sheet come with and without an asterisk.
Asterisk below NHLPA logo
Courtesy of COMC.com
No asterisk
Courtesy of COMC.com
I haven't done a detailed investigation. It's possible variant A and B sheets exist too, but the overwhelming number of cards have an asterisk. Unfortunately, I see nothing on the foil cards to distinguish sheets. Perhaps there is only the one sheet.
TRIVIA ANSWER!
Okay, so yes, I looked at the back of ever card to figure this out. Hopefully I didn't miss anything.
My supposition was that it was going to be a high scoring Smythe player taking advantage of the expansion Sharks. And yes, Wayne Gretzky ate them alive with 15 points in 6 games. Mario Lemieux put up 13 points in just 3 games! But the Sharks were spared by scheduling. There were 6 teams in the Smythe, so no one faced them more than 7 times. Whereas teams in the Norris and Adams had 8 meetings. That extra game made all the difference.
The winner, with 18 points in 8 games, is Jeremy Roenick.
He punished the Maple Leafs with 9 goals and 9 assists.
Legacy
For those who weren't collecting in '93, I don't know if this set has any meaning to you. It listed for between $40-100 last time I checked years ago (I paid $50+ shipping for mine) and at any given time on eBay, you'll find sets in that range available. Boxes are much harder to come by. Bowman itself would come and go in strange iterations while Topps had its license. It was eliminated in 1993 because the NHL briefly went to a 2 sets per company rule, but it came back only to disappear and come back again. Bowman always struck me as a homeless brand in hockey, tied to no tradition and unclear why it was being produced. But for a brief moment, largely due to the total indifference paid to it before, it finally got its chance to shine.
And take some poor bastid's $40 in exchange for a Brian Bellows.
Mike
1990 and 1991 Bowman
No one cares about these sets. That's a very strong statement. In general, someone cares about everything. So when I say no one without any qualifiers, I mean it. NO ONE cares about these sets.
Bowman was an experiment in blandness cooked up by Topps. "What if we create a multi-sport set that uses the same design for each sport? And we'll take a brand known for its unusual size, and we'll strip it of that. Also, this brand will have zero history with most of the sports involved."
That's Bowman. Topps produced a huge amount of 1990 Bowman hockey to no fanfare. The 264 card set piled up everywhere. Even the inclusion of an Ed Belfour rookie card couldn't move this redundancy. In 1991, they expanded the set to a bizarre 429 cards, except the hobby still hadn't absorbed the prior issue. Few ordered it; few missed it. You'd be forgiven if you forgot it existed.
With hobby interest at zero (I was going to say near zero, but no, it was absolute zero), Topps retooled for 1992 and decided to upgrade the set to 'premium', although it still looked identical across all sports. Would anyone care this time?
1992-93
Initially, no. The set debuted in Beckett's January 1993 issue with a price tag of $25-35, the same price as Ultra's Series 1 despite being nearly twice the size. It looked destined for obscurity. Then something weird began to happen. Each month, it would go up a little. $45, $60, $75. Month after month it was gaining, but it was doing so without any commentary. Beckett had nothing to say. The thought occurred to me that an experiment was being conducted. "If we just raise the prices on something no one collects, what would happen?"
Finally, in June, Beckett broke the silence and dedicated its Weather Report to it. Now we were told that some of the cards were short printed and that the entire product was produced at unheard of levels - low levels. Now the set soared to a hi book of $175 and two of the singles hit $15. As we entered the summer months and new product tailed off, how high could Bowman go? $200? $250? Dare we dream of $300?
Try $475! The set would peak in October 1993 with a range of $350-475 and short printed singles reaching as high as $55! Brian Bellows's SP launched to $40 for some reason...was it perceived to be shorter short printed? No idea. Most other SPs of his ilk were closer to $20.
Well, folks, I have recently acquired this fabled set. Let's now take a closer look.
The set was originally intended as 441 cards with 396 base cards and 45 foil cards. That number was bumped to 442 when a base Eric Lindros was added. (He is not listed on the checklists.) Cards were distributed in packs of 15 cards, in boxes of 36 packs, and in cases of 16 boxes. I do not have the original SRP for you, but I suspect it was the same as Stadium Club ($1.49? $1.99?).
The cards are now on improved stock and have a glossy finish. The only thing unique about Bowman is that it breaks down a player's stats against his opponents. It will also provide pronunciation help for names it thinks you can't pronounce. Names like Gretzky, which you might have never heard aloud.
The player selection is meh. Topps proved itself incredibly loyal to the players who graced their cards in the 1980s, so this set is veteran heavy. Rookie cards are few and far between, although in their mild defense, sets like 1991-92 Parkhurst Series 2 had spoiled 1992-93's rookie crop for everyone. That said, Bowman included precious few of those players anyway.
Here's a good demonstration. 1991-92 was a tumultuous year for the Boston Bruins, who were decimated by injury. Many veterans cycled through until reinforcements arrived from the Olympic squads and junior teams. Players like Joe Juneau, Glen Murray, Steve Heinze, and Ted Donato immediately slotted in as regulars for the playoffs. But Bowman opted to give only Juneau a card. It was far more important to represent the players who lost their jobs to them, like Andy Brickley and Brent Ashton. Most amusing of all is Barry Pederson, who retired in season.
TRIVIA TIME!
The card backs show how much damage each player did against other teams. Can you guess the player who did the most damage to one individual team? How many points did he put up, and against whom? Answers below!
Putting on the Foil
The foil cards were an interesting concept. 44 of them honored every player named to the All-star game and the 45th honored Mario Lemieux's Conn Smythe trophy. The backs of the All-Star cards showed how each player did before and after the game (or at least before and after the halfway mark...unclear to me the specific point.)
These cards fell one per pack. Therefore, it was impossible to get a complete set from just one box. To make matters worse, 18 of the cards were short-printed!
Eric Lindros
This card debuted at $7.50 and peaked at $35. It would be safe to say that the card is short printed, but it's impossible to know for sure or by how much. It doesn't seem that hard to find. It should also be noted that thieves stole many of these cards from Topps before the coating was applied. If you have an unvarnished Lindros, you've got hot goods!
The Print Run
So just how rare is this set? Beckett now reports that a grand total of 2000 cases were produced. So if we do the math, that's 2000 cases * 16 boxes * 36 packs *14 base cards for 16,128,000 base cards. If we divide by the original 396 cards, that gives us about 40,727 copies per card. We know Lindros dilutes this a bit, but even if he was produced in equal numbers, that's 40,625.
The foil, at just one card per pack, is more scarce. There are only 1,152,000 copies total. And if the SPs exist at a precise ratio of 1:2, then we can calculate that each SP has 16000 copies and each regular has 32000. (There are 18 SPs and 27 'normals'.) I've never seen a sheet, so I don't know how many cards were on each one. The numbers suggest 2 sheets of 36 cards with 27 appearing on both sheet. A standard 132 sheet could not produce a 1:2 ratio, but no one said that's the case.
Therefore, we can estimate that 16000 is about the maximum amount of complete sets available. That's a lot by today's standards, but in 1993? That's genuinely scarce. And as there was no internet to facilitate collecting, you pretty much had to bust boxes...if you could find one. Getting a box of this today is hard to do and it doesn't come cheaply.
Variants
This is also the rare post 1990 set that has a variant. Vincent Damphousse's foil all-star card is found with and without the name of his team on the card back. My guess is this not a correction, but a variation. If my supposition about the foil sheets is true, one of the sheets had a copy with it and the other didn't.
Another odd thing is that some of the card backs from the C sheet come with and without an asterisk.
Asterisk below NHLPA logo
Courtesy of COMC.com
No asterisk
Courtesy of COMC.com
I haven't done a detailed investigation. It's possible variant A and B sheets exist too, but the overwhelming number of cards have an asterisk. Unfortunately, I see nothing on the foil cards to distinguish sheets. Perhaps there is only the one sheet.
TRIVIA ANSWER!
Okay, so yes, I looked at the back of ever card to figure this out. Hopefully I didn't miss anything.
My supposition was that it was going to be a high scoring Smythe player taking advantage of the expansion Sharks. And yes, Wayne Gretzky ate them alive with 15 points in 6 games. Mario Lemieux put up 13 points in just 3 games! But the Sharks were spared by scheduling. There were 6 teams in the Smythe, so no one faced them more than 7 times. Whereas teams in the Norris and Adams had 8 meetings. That extra game made all the difference.
The winner, with 18 points in 8 games, is Jeremy Roenick.
He punished the Maple Leafs with 9 goals and 9 assists.
Legacy
For those who weren't collecting in '93, I don't know if this set has any meaning to you. It listed for between $40-100 last time I checked years ago (I paid $50+ shipping for mine) and at any given time on eBay, you'll find sets in that range available. Boxes are much harder to come by. Bowman itself would come and go in strange iterations while Topps had its license. It was eliminated in 1993 because the NHL briefly went to a 2 sets per company rule, but it came back only to disappear and come back again. Bowman always struck me as a homeless brand in hockey, tied to no tradition and unclear why it was being produced. But for a brief moment, largely due to the total indifference paid to it before, it finally got its chance to shine.
And take some poor bastid's $40 in exchange for a Brian Bellows.
Mike
