Couple questions to get back into collecting

[Cliffroach]

Starting to get back into collecting baseball cards. Couple questions if you guys don't mind.

1-What do most people consider a player's rookie card now? Someone told me it's their Bowman Autograph card. I would like to put some focus on rookie cards and just wanted to get some opinions.

2- What would you buy if you were looking at purchasing cases - Bowman or Bowman Chrome?

I appreciate you guys indulging me with some "newbie" questions. Thanks!

[jwgreen68]

A players Rookie card is generally anything designated with the "RC" stamp. Anything before that are just prospect or first Bowman card, things like that. MLBPA came out with a rule in 2002, I think, that's a guideline for what can be considered a RC.You can Google it for more info. That's not to say, that some collectors don't find the other cards desirable, its just whatever your preference is.

[Cliffroach]

Thanks for the response!

[revghost]

As far as cases go, that really depends on what you're looking to do. If you're wanting to get a good return on investment, I'd go Bowman or Bowman Draft. Bowman Chrome usually has a weaker auto checklist. Bowman will yield prospects and veterans, whereas Draft yields prospects and rookies only. Bowman will give you a good return if you hit some decent colored autos, but the paper parallels may not do much for you as they include the base bowman set, so you may end up with a Boone Logan /10. With Draft, it's nothing but rookies and prospects and from what I've seen, most breakers turn a profit on cases. Keep in mind that all three yield Chrome Autos, Chrome Parallels, so you could potentially score big on any of them, but your odds are better with Bowman Base and Bowman Draft due to better Auto Checklists in these products.

[Cliffroach]

Thanks! Which one is best for getting rookie cards? I'm interested in collecting rookie cards and it's confusing which comes from which.

[revghost]

Again, this is conditional. Take Manny Machado for example. This year, he had an RC in all three products: a paper RC in Bowman Base, an RC in Bowman Chrome, and both a paper and a base RC in Draft. Due to the release schedule, the Bowman Base RC is technically more of a True RC due to the release date of the product. The Chrome RC from Bowman Chrome as well as Refractor Parallels from Bowman Chrome all book higher than his Chrome RCs and Refractor RC's from Bowman Draft. From what I have seen, the RCs hold their value well, but the prospect cards seem to carry the premium. Machado had Paper and Chrome Prospect cards in 2010 Bowman Draft, and those will almost always book higher because they were his first cards in a pro uniform. Really, it's a mess, prepare to be a full time researcher with this stuff, lol.

[revghost]

You'll get way more RC's out of Draft, but they may not command the premium that RC's from Base Bowman and Bowman Chrome typically do. The quality of rookies you pull is the same across the board, for the most part. A big exception last year was Yasiel Puig, late callups could make one product yield better than the other. Base Bowman had two Puig inserts, but no RC. Bowman Chrome had the Puig RC, as well as Chrome RC Autos of Puig, so that was a huge selling point for Bowman Chrome. His Draft RC's don't book as high, but they book pretty well considering what they are. If you want to avoid the Bowman Circus, (I wish I could, but I'm locked into it now, lol) go with any of the other Topps releases. Maybe stay away from Heritage, pretty weak product if you're looking for rookies.