Pre-season is a very difficult time of year for the card companies, especially now that Upper Deck has the exclusive license to use all College logos and jerseys. Add in that the NFL has become more stringent with the way they enforce the license, and all of a sudden it becomes that much harder to produce a set that doesnt have updated pictures from team workouts and the rookie premiere. This has led to Panini releasing prestige a month and a half later than normal, and Topps attempting to use the Bowman line in a way like never before. We will see if Prestige will be successful with the adjusted release date, but from what we are seeing with Bowman so far, this is a segment of the business that is better left to Leaf and UD.

The retail parts of the product have already hit shelves, and they are far below the usual look of a Topps product:

Bowman Signature Andrew Luck RC

Bowman Signature Robert Griffin III RC

Bowman Signature Ryan Tannehill RC

Bowman Signature Doug Martin RC

First off, I understand that in a product where the packs cost 30 dollar a piece, the rookie base cards are not going to be a focus. However, these base cards are so hideous for the rookies, that I cannot go without mentioning the way they turned out. Usually I would comment on the way the painted filter and the non-head shots worked out so well. However, without a number on the jersey, its practically a quiz to find out who the player is. There are certain elements that provide a likeness to a player’s image. The first is the uniform itself, which in these cards is a generic one, and it makes the card look ridiculous. The second is the number on the uniform, and without NFL approval, there cannot be any. Minus the uniform and the number, there is no way to place the player’s likeness without one more thing – the picture itself. Normally, the painted filter makes a card look more artistic and beautiful. In this case, it makes the player further generic. You could honestly put Trent Richardson’s picture on David Wilson’s card and I could not tell the difference.

In reality, this product will be an afterthought when the rest of the season shakes out. The focus is the signed Helmet cards, which look better than the base cards, but still lack the branding that COULD have taken place with the airbrushed uniforms that we know are possible. Because these cards needed to be signed back around draft time, it wasnt possible to have NFL uniforms in this product, but that is where more of a production gap between the draft and the release needs to be imposed. I would much rather have a product that comes out later and has the elements of a good set, rather than one that is forced to use the strict rules of the NFL license.

The addition of cards like this Tim Tebow SSP, which are already selling for crazy prices, will help the product get the attention that will sell the small number of available hobby boxes. As for retail, this is a great product because its on the shelf before anything else. That’s all that matters sometimes in a retail setting, as the parameters that sell a hobby product, rarely apply on Target and Walmart’s shelves.

Topps cut hobby distribution on this product by something like 72%, which means that it is going to create value in the packs due to limited availability. Even with the way the cards look, it wont matter. However, this distribution is only going to apply to the hobby only content, as there is a wide retail release of this product. Bottom line, if you can find hobby packs of this, and you can manage to pull one of the hard signed helmet cards, you WILL be able to sell it. For the rest of the base set, the SSP cards will also bring value to the packs. However, outside of that, Im not sure what the product will bring.

We will see the rest of the content with the release of the hobby packs, and there will be parts of it that further show that this product isnt on the same level that we have come to expect from Topps. When the packaging features a backup QB, and rookies in the generic uniforms, you know its going to be a tough sell. I hope this is the last product like this we see for 2012.