Welcome back to Sports Card Collecting 101!  The last three posts focused on the 1948-49 Leaf Catalog.  Now, it is time to turn our attention to another historically significant product line, Bowman Baseball.  Bowman baseball cards changed the sports card collecting landscape for decades.  Whether you like what they did depends largely on how you feel about the monopolization of the baseball rookie card.

Bowman Baseball Is An Iteration of Play Ball!

Bowman Baseball Cards is an off-shoot of Gum Inc.  Gum Inc. dominated the bubble gum market and produced the immensely popular Play Ball Baseball Cards in the ’30s and ’40s.  After a short hiatus in baseball card production, Gum Inc. started to produce baseball cards again under the brand name Bowman in 1948.

That Bowman set is largely overshadowed by the looming greatness of the Leaf set.  There are Urban Legends of stories in which Bowman sales representatives discarded thousands of cases of the product because they couldn’t sell them.

However, because Bowman’s popularity dwarfed in comparison to the Leaf set, Bowman set out to do something very sneaky.  After the first set was produced, Bowman began signing up-and-coming baseball players to exclusive licensing deals.

Bowman's Sneaky Move Changes Baseball Card Production For Decades

The result of this move is hotly debated to this day.  The ramifications of this move changed the sports card landscape forever.  Products like Leaf or other brands could not compete by producing sets of established major league baseball players without some of the most popular and exciting rookies to come up to your local major league baseball stadium.

As a result, Bowman (and then Topps after they purchased Bowman) owned the Rookie Card exclusive market. 

In 2006, Major League Baseball and card companies came to an agreement on what defines a rookie card in an attempt to offer other baseball card production companies a fighting chance in the baseball card market.  This ultimately failed for reasons covered later in our class. 

Then, in 2009, Major League Baseball and Topps came to an agreement; Topps obtained the exclusive rights to Major League Baseball licensing.  It gets more complicated than this, but that is the general, very short history of what the first exclusive agreement started.

Hello Mickey Mantle!

The Bowman set to really invest in, then, is the 1951 Bowman set.  Why?  Welcome to the sports card collecting market Mickey Mantle!  Mickey Mantle OWNS the baseball card market.  Period. 

EVERY Mickey Mantle card is sought after, has value, and is worthy of investment.  His first card is the 1951 Bowman and. of course, that means it is his rookie card.

Sales on the Mickey Mantle range from around $15,000 + for a card graded in the 4 range to $55,000 + for a card graded in the 7 range.  Mickey Mantle cards are the “blue chips” of the baseball card collective. Any chance you have to purchase a Mantle card should be taken; it will only increase in value over time.

That is Not the ONLY Rookie Card To Own!

Other notable rookie cards from this set include Whitey Ford, Nellie Fox, and the “Say Hey Kid” Willie Mays. A mid-grade Mays can bring in a $15,000 haul.

While those are obvious investment options, some sneaky pickups to consider are some of the Hall of Famers in the set.  Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra, Bob Feller, Robin Roberts, and nearly twenty other Hall of Famers are in this set.

A super sneaky move would be to pick up common singles or minor stars from cards #253-324 in the set.  These “update singles” in the set are short-printed.  Set builders are constantly looking for these short-printed singles and will also buy higher-grade samples of the ones they already have to increase the set value.

An interesting point (or perhaps irony( of this set is that the majority of high-value cards fall between the #253-324 checklist.  Notably, Mickey Mantle is card #253 and Willie Mays is #305. The majority of the rookie cards in this set fall between cards #253-324 in the set.

We know, this wasn't about Comics, Video Games, or Concert Posters - but if you'd like to see more content like this, let us know in the comments!

*Any perceived investment advice is that of the freelance blogger and does not reflect investment advice on behalf of GoCollect