2020 Bowman 1st Edition – Online Exclusive Prospects Release

With several new baseball card product releases being pushed back and delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many in the hobby world are waiting and wondering when the annual Bowman flagship product will be out. 2020 Bowman was originally scheduled to be released this April, but with one of Topps’ packaging plants shut down, that release date was pushed back to May and is now TBD.

Then #thehobby gods spoke and we get word of a new line being sold exclusively on Topps.com this week only, between April 22 and April 24, during very limited purchasing windows. It’s called 2020 Bowman 1st Edition, and the cards look almost exactly like what the new 2020 Bowmans will look like, but each card has a 1st Edition stamp.

This Bowman 1st Edition product has a checklist of 150 prospect cards, most of which I’m assuming will also be in the 2020 Bowman product when that is released. For now collectors are clamoring to get their hands on these difficult-to-acquire packs. Each 10-card pack is $14.99 during the Topps online purchasing window, and customers are limited to 24 packs maximum per account. Just minutes after the first packs were sold and confirmed, some started showing up for sale on ebay for $30-$50 per pack. That’s just absurd in my opinion, and not what this hobby should be about. But I digress.

Now live: Bowman 1st Edition day 2!

As a reminder, you must be logged in to your account to view the product and purchase.https://t.co/aw8H58WUN0 pic.twitter.com/e9zJXlj7p5

— Topps (@Topps) April 23, 2020

Out of the 150 prospect cards in 2020 Bowman 1st Edition, 35 of the players are being honored with their 1st Bowman card, including some big name, top prospects such as Bobby Witt Jr., Robert Puason and New York’s #1 prospect, international signing Jasson Dominguez. Thank you to Matt from @fireboxcases for helping me figure out exactly which of these 150 players get their first Bowman card. There’s no doubt many of these 1st Bowman cards are going to be in very high demand. The Topps website says the product is going to be shipping out around May 4th, so these cards will likely be in hands during that first full week in May. I have been patiently awaiting the first Bowman card of Red Sox prospect Jarren Duran (not counting the Gary Vaynerchuk Direct360 card from last year), and according to the checklist, he’s in 1st Edition with card #BFE-144! Some other exciting names that we’re seeing for the first time and these players are getting their 1st Bowman cards include:
Jacob Amaya, Dodgers
Xavier Edwards, Rays
Niko Hulsizer, Rays
Sherten Apostel, Rangers
Bayron Lora, Rangers
Everson Pereira, Yankees
Joey Cantillo, Padres
Tarik Skubal, Tigers
Joe Ryan, Rays
Drew Mendoza, Nationals
I could go on and on as there looks to be another 21 1st Bowmans in this product.

In addition to the regular cards, each player will have 7 different colored parallel cards, each serial numbered based on the color. Odds per pack and numbers per color parallel according to The Cardboard Connection website:
Sky Blue Border (1:2 packs)
Blue Border – #/150 (1:10 packs)
Yellow Border – #/75 (1:19 packs)
Gold Border – #/50 (1:28 packs)
Orange Border – #/25 (1:56 packs)
Red Border – #/5 (1:279 packs)
Platinum – 1/1 (1:1,375 packs)

And to make things even more exciting and put these 1st Edition packs into an even higher demand category, Chrome autographs with a 1st Edition stamp will be found in an average of 1:310 packs according to the description of the product on Topps.com.

If you are attempting to purchase some of these new Bowman 1st Edition cards on Topps.com on Friday, April 24, good luck and be patient. The task is tedious and frustrating at times, and you may think you have items in your Cart, but then there’s a glitch with the site and checkout process. Both days, Wednesday April 22 and Thursday April 23, the product has sold out quickly and even Topps has publicly tweeted about technical issues they’re aware of with the site.

We sincerely apologize for the technical issues on https://t.co/RoplTbojLd during the past two days of Bowman 1st Edition launch. We are working now to get the site up & running again.

We understand the frustration and we thank you for your continued patience. https://t.co/Tanem2726q

— Topps (@Topps) April 23, 2020