2013 Bowman Inception Baseball Box Break Recap And Review

Without question I was a bit harsh when it came to my review of Inception this year when it came to the football version.  But there were issues, edge chipping, the vast majority of hits coming from a small number of unproven players, along with some others. With 2013 Bowman Inception Baseball, Topps has made some smart moves in dealing with these issues, which allows this version of Inception to reach for its full potential.

By shifting Inception from the Topps to Bowman, it signals collectors that they are dealing with a prospecting product, which it is most definitely, something they should do for the future release of 2013 Inception Football.  Edging on these cards seems much cleaner.  The use of background cloud patterns instead of solid black bordering also helps matters.  Bowman Inception Baseball also has a really great lineup of players for autographs.

Inception Baseball falls into our premium cards category.  Each hobby box contains 1 – 5 card pack with 4 On-Card Autograph and 1 Auto Relic cards per box.

Here is a look at the cards we pulled.

Base Autographs

 Stefen Romero, front and back

 Eddie Butler, Jonathan Singleton redemption

Autograph Relic

 Hak-Ju Lee

Base Parallel Autograph

 Kevin Gausman purple #/5

Overall Look

These cards look great with plenty of rainbow parallel versions to pull. The base cards and lowered numbered parallels are a nice combo of high dynamic range photography, dark contrast layout, Spot UV and matte finishes along with smart foil accents.  The base autos are executed to near perfection with just the right amount of soft edged, cloud-like dodging to allow for the signature to be highlighted without seeming like a huge blank space was created.  Multiple autograph cards are a little less refined but when you are getting a big hit like that, it is probably best to define the small spaces for the players to sign.

Quality and Variety of Players

The variety of players is rather compact but that works when the quality is there, which it is for a prospecting product.

Do the Hits satisfy?

With production issues out of the way, these hits are great. Even though this is a prospecting product there is still plenty of proven talent to be pulled.

Will you keep coming back for more?

This is an easy enough purchase point to see prospectors going for multiple purchases and also provides an entry point into premium collecting for those who are not ready to buy into a full box of a product like Bowman Sterling.

Rating

4 1/2 out of 5

This could easily be marked as the comeback product line of the year with all of the adjustments 2013 Bowman Inception Baseball has made in comparison to 2012 Topps Inception Football.  Let’s hope these changes find their way into Football this year.


Review box provided by Topps