What is the Best MLB Prospect Card to Buy?
Baseball card collectors love trying to find “The Next Mickey Mantle” or “The Next Mike Trout”. In the hobby, we call this “prospecting”. Each season, many fans scour a host of college and minor league stats to try and identify which players have the potential to rise to eventual stardom.
There are several baseball card sets released each season which feature cards of players before they get called up to the majors. Panini Stars and Stripes Team USA cards, Topps Pro Debut, and Topps Heritage Minor League are popular with collectors, but there is one prospect card that towers above them all. A player’s “1st Bowman” card is the prospect card which almost always carries the highest value.
What is a 1st Bowman?
For decades, a player’s rookie card (the first card a player had after making his MLB debut) was their most sought after card. It usually still is. However, in the 1990s the Bowman brand started making minor league prospects a key feature of the product. Along with it, they created a special “1st Bowman” logo to signify the first time a player appeared on a Bowman card. Over the last several years, the popularity of first Bowman cards has grown to rival that of the rookie card.
If you are looking to buy just one minor league card of your favorite prospect, you want it to be a 1st Bowman.
How Do I Find When a Player’s 1st Bowman Card Was Made?
When a player like the Pittsburgh Pirates Paul Skenes comes onto the field to dominate on the mound, a highly touted prospect like Washington Nationals Dylan Crews makes his MLB debut, or Roman Anthony is named the #1 prospect in baseball, many collectors scramble to go back and buy their prospect cards. Bowman makes three different products during the year which contain 1st Bowman cards: Bowman, Bowman Chrome and Bowman Draft. Plus, with many players having years and years of minor league cards to collect, it can sometimes be a challenge to know which set had their 1st Bowman.
You can just search your favorite online marketplace to see which cards have the 1st Bowman logo or you can use a resource like The Definitive Guide to First Bowman Cards which I created on the WaxPackHero website. It has a searchable page to let you see which set has your favorite player’s 1st Bowman.
Prospecting can be a fun way to collect cards of the next generation of MLB stars. If you want to go that route, then collecting their first Bowman cards should be part of your plan!
Mike Sommer is a lifelong collector who has a passion for teaching others how to have a self-sustaining hobby. You can find more from him at WaxPackHero.com, Hobby News Daily, and on the WaxPackHero Sports Card Minute podcast.