Archive for Brett Lawrie

A stunning statistic about my 2011 Bowman Chrome pulls

Posted in Newspaperman with tags , , , , , on January 27, 2012 by Cardboard Icons

Some time late last season, 2011 Bowman Chrome baseball was released.  And as usual, I bought a fair share.  I failed to pull any of the super high dollar cards, but I did get a few cards I liked, like the green XFractor Brett Lawrie and the 2001 Bowman Chrome Throwbacks Bryce Harper.

Well, when I pulled the cards from the packs, they looked absolutely perfect.  The Harper was pulled the same day that a major case buster pulled one and posted a picture of it.  His copy was horribly miscut.  I decided that day to have mine graded.

And so I did … along with my Brett Lawrie and nine other random cards.

Well, both the Lawrie and Harper came back Gem Mint 9.5.  I was stoked about the Lawrie because traditionally XFractors are tough to get in top shape.  The sub grades on both are stunning.

But this was like three months ago.

I haven’t written about this grading batch, so the other night I prepared to write about them and decided to do a quick population on both.

Here is the “stunning” statistic:

As of Jan. 20, 2012, I had the ONLY cop of these cards that have been graded Gem Mint.  And to that point, these are the ONLY copies to even have been submitted for grading by Beckett Grading Services.

Really?

Wonder why this is the case.

Lawrie is a top prospect who has a pretty decent following in the hobby.  This is a version of his first Bowman Chrome card.

And Bryce Harper is still a top draw in this hobby.  It would see that ANY of his cards would be submitted for grading.

**Note, there has been one additional Harper graded gem mint.

— Jan 27, 2012.

2011 Bowman Chrome retail results (Bryce Galore)

Posted in Box / Pack Break with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 19, 2011 by Cardboard Icons

I had the good fortune of getting to a Target on Wednesday just minutes after the vendor stocked the shelves with new items, including 2011 Bowman Chrome baseball.  I tell you, it’s a wonderful feeling to walk through the doors and see from about 100 feet away the sight of new packs.

So I dove in.

I bought a blaster and a few of the Value Pack Rack Packs.

The basics:  The blaster offers eight packs for $19.99 while each Value Pack offers three basic retail packs (same odds as loosies and in blasters) and a single pack of three green xfractors for $8.99.

What’s great about all of these packs is they offer a shot at the same cards that are in hobby packs, save for the superfractors.  This means the basic chrome prospect autos are available in retail packs.  Someone is going to pull a Harper Chrome Auto out of a pack at Target, or WalMart, or Kroger, or whatever. Awesome, right?

One problem:  Autographs fall one in 77 packs. They are one per box (18 packs) in hobby.

Anyway, the price points are obviously a lot more palatable than that of the hobby prices, which I imagine are eclipsing the $5 per pack point in some places.

Anyway, here are the better cards I pulled in my packs.  And yes, I actually hit an auto.

Did you know Bryce Harper is in this product?!

Calm down, I said that facetiously.

I got Bryce from the Past:

(And yes, it is dead center on both sides)

2001 Bowman Throwbacks

Bryce from the Present:

2011 Bowman Chrome Prospect

And Bryce from the Future:

2011 Bowman Chrome 2021 Bowman Chrome Future

Always nice at this point to see Bryce Harper in my packs.  Too bad none of them were covered in ink. That said, I did manage to pull this auto:

2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects Autograph Starling Marte

I know I showed off my Bryce Harper 2001 Bowman Chrome throwback above, but I also puled these two:

2011 Bowman Chrome 2001 Throwbacks Brett Lawrie

2011 Bowman Chrome 2001 Bowman Chrome Reprint Ichiro rookie

The Ichiro is the Japanese version.

But perhaps the nicest card of all came from one of my retail exclusive packs:

2011 Bowman Chrome Prospects Green Xfractor Brett Lawrie

Dead center.  No print lines. No scratches. Just beautiful.