Fake Friendly Bowman Sterling Cards Are Popping Up At An Alarming Rate

You may have seen these cards popping up all over eBay, and I am starting to wonder what is going to happen to them. The cards are out of 2009 Bowman Sterling Football, and I have to believe that these cards are going to be a playground for fakes.

Last week, a few collectors over on FCB noticed that a number of Red Sterling 1 of 1s were being auctioned off without the sticker or jersey attached to them. This could mean that someone with devious intentions had the chance to buy a cheap "1/1" that wasn’t meant to be sold, rip a sticker off another card, sign it, and sell it for big money. For all intensive purposes, a player super collector may want it as well, so it may not all be bad.

Today I received my normal Peterson/Harvin emails in my inbox from eBay and saw these two different cards. They are not the 1/1s and are just regular cards that probably will be purchased for under 50 dollars. The cards themselves sell for over 150 when real.

It looks to be another shipping mistake from Topps, so watch your ass for any fakes you may normally bid on without question.

Which Chrome Style Brand Works The Best?

Each year, Topps releases 4 or so Chrome board sets for the NFL, all of which are pretty popular releases. Bowman Chrome and Sterling, Topps Chrome and Finest, all have huge collector followings for different reasons, but which one reigns supreme?

2009 Base Design

I think this category is a two horse race between Finest and Topps Chrome. Finest went with a simple, yet cool design that hearkens back to the glory days of finest. Topps Chrome's design this year was also great and simple, more so than any other Topps flagship design for the last few years. For this I am more partial to Chrome because I bust so much of it each year, but the base design has to go to Finest for the way the team color elements combine with the full bleed, borderless design.

Winner: Finest

2009 Refractors

Bowman Chrome and Topps Chrome are the home of the refractors, so its obvious that they are going to be at the top here. Finest's Pigskin Refractors are cool, but the others are a bitch to even recognize. Bowman Chrome's design lends itself more to the colored refractor look, and I really like what it means to truly have the rainbow with these. The Red Refractors even look better than the Topps one, and carry more value. You also have silver and bronze box toppers, which can be a parallel nightmare, or cool depending on how you feel about the number of refractors in Bowman. Topps is more simple, but the numbering is a little too high for them to make a truly centerpiece worthy piece. This one goes to Bowman Chrome.

Winner: Bowman Chrome

2009 Autograph Rookie Cards

I think all four sets have their merit in autograph cards, but Sterling's awful design and relic placement takes them out of the running. As for Bowman Chrome, the autos fit well into the design, and the colored refractor autos look very good. However, Topps Chrome's look that much better in my opinion. First off, the Black and Gold refractors are awesome, and the swatch placement on the ridiculous jersey autos is better than Bowman any day of the week. Finest probably would have taken this spot, but they added a needless swatch when it wasnt needed on ALL of their base rookie autos.

Winner: Topps Chrome

2009 Added Content

Whether its the letter autos in finest, or the one per case base variations in Topps Chrome, there has been a move for added content this year. Bowman Chrome has added more refractors this year, but that isnt really a good thing in some cases. Sterling, well, Sterling is quickly becoming a distant fourth in everything here. Im not really a letter person, but the finest ones that are built with pro uni colors are nice. However, when you see how much the 1 per case variations go for, its a tough race with Topps chrome. I love the idea, but I cant decide what works best.

Winner: Topps Finest and Chrome (tie)

2009 Price

Sterling is automatically a fourth place for having such a huge price tag for the junk you get. Finest is nice, but there isnt much value outside of the autos in that box. For Topps Chrome and Bowman Chrome, you can miss on the auto, but still do awesome on the box thanks to the value of the refractors. They are both under sixty bucks, but Bowman Chrome gives you a box topper, and a bunch of color per box. Topps has the possibility of reds, and coppers, but there isnt much else in a hobby box.

Winner: Bowman Chrome

Overall Champion

When it comes down to it, I think this is going to continue to be a tight race between the two Chrome brands, though this year, Topps Chrome just has a little more going for it. The design is great, the autos are great, and most of the added content is great. The Cheerleader cards are fucking annoying, but you can still get past them because the other cards are awesome. The values of the box hits are higher, and the retail prowess is great on it. Its at the top of the leader board for a reason, as so far its my favorite product of 2009.

CHAMPION: 2009 Topps Chrome

This Is Why I Stay Away From Bowman Sterling

I dont care what people say about the value of the card, this is one of the most poorly conceived cards of the year. Total and utter shit.

I think it would be 100% better just by removing the awfully placed swatch. I have no idea why they even thought this would be acceptable. Kind of like Sanchez is being sacked by the swatch and trying to get the ball off before he goes down.

For 250 dollars a box, ill pass. Wow.

Product Review: 2009 Bowman Sterling Football

Over the last few years, there hasn’t been a high end set created quite like Bowman Sterling. Trying to equal the success of the prospector's baseball favorite, Topps tried to create a similar set for football. The problem is that prospecting is very tough to market in football because all of the players are usually on the field from the beginning. This year, the previews were promising for a design that looked much better than it had in previous years. After seeing the finished product, I am less than enthusiastic about what was produced.

Design/Creativity

I have never been a fan of Bowman Sterling because I don’t think it offers much to the people who buy it. My feelings on the design are very similar as well, as this year's just looks as distracting as ever. You know those ruler designs you did in elementary school where you drew two axis and connected dots to form a cool looking star like thing? Yeah, Topps used those as part of the background. Normally, it wouldn’t be any more distracting than a normal element, but they have added a different grain of refractor to them so that they reflect differently than the normal rainbow foil. It makes the card so hard to look at that someone at the shop last night said he had a headache just from opening the packs.

Secondly, the photography they used in this set is completely awful. For some of the cards, they didn’t even use actual shots, they just blew up their player pics from NFL.com. Rather than accomplishing their goal of providing a good look, it looks like they are putting mugshots on the cards. Most of the players didn’t quite know what to do for those pics, and therefore most look bored or angry. Not a good look for a close up trading card.

The entire set is printed on ridiculous rainbow foil or mirror foil board that somehow makes the cheaper chrome set look like it is a more focused execution of the technology. They even added colors to the parallels, which further detract from everything on the card.

There is one good thing, and that is the fact that they incorporated cards for the rookie material auto cards where the players have their helmet on. Although there are some of them that are still helmet off and goofy, a few are done the correct way.

The golden dual autographs arent that bad despite the incredible gaudiness of the cards. Although the bordered stickers are weird looking, the overall presentation of the cards are the best of the set. Of course, that isnt saying much for this.

Rating =

Autograph Cards

The single autograph wouldn’t be that bad if they were printed without all the busy lines and added crap on the sides. Of course, since this is a Topps product that costs more than 100 dollars, they look pretty bad from most of the ones that I saw pulled. This product offers much less in their normal autos that Chrome does at less than a quarter of the price, which truly says something about the concept of this set.

More importantly, the focus of this set, the rookie material autographs look worse than they have in a long time. Ditching the horizontal orientation that gave them room for a huge foil sticker and a swatch, they instead packed every element into a vertical card. The result is a player that is almost being attacked by the swatch, as it looks to be creeping up their chests to eat their faces. The swatches obscure most of the player picture in some cases, thus making me question why it was even necessary, a la the Chrome auto patches with the same problem.

Another bad part of this is that Topps sometimes uses this type of situation as a sticker dump, meaning that non-star rookies from last year could be making an appearance. We already saw on youtube that players like Devin Thomas are put in this set, and those non-rookie jersey materials cards are rarer than case hits. How would you feel if you pulled that?

Lastly, there is no reason to release a product that costs THIS much with the stickers. Unlike Panini, Topps has the resources to get on card signatures, but doesn’t pursue it. I cannot understand why that would be the case, nor why the stickers are highlighted with a border in the design. I thought the point of a sticker was to hide the fact that it wasn’t on card, not make it a focus.

Rating =

Relic Cards

Although there are rookie jersey cards, the veteran jerseys are pretty much throwaways in this set. There are multiples per pack, and they become as boring while breaking as the overall concept of Bowman Sterling altogether. All it does is add unnecessary cost to the product, as its pretty obvious that Topps has had a tough time figuring out what a box would contain.

The rookie jerseys are expected and are basically just another card that you flip through to get to your scrub auto numbered to 15 billion. The pics are similar or identical to the auto parallels, and that is not a complement to any of them. Big disappointment.

Rating =

Value To The Collector

Of any of the sets that hit the market during the year, this is the worst possible one to buy a box of, hands fucking down. Boxes cost over 200 dollars, and you get 10 autos that are worth less than the rainbow board they are printed on, a bunch of plain swatch jersey cards, and one or two premiere rookie autos that never hold their value. I am completely serious that you need to have electro shock therapy if you are going to buy any of this. I cannot think of a bigger waste of money. Its that bad.

Even though the cards come out of a high end product, they very rarely equal the value of a card that comes out of a comparable priced set. Personally I think its because the cards are stickers and always look like crap, but Im also starting to believe its because people are getting sick of high end Topps product that offer nothing for the people that buy them.

Rating =

Overall Impressions

This set is complete crap. Poorly conceived, poorly designed, poorly executed. Go buy 5 boxes of chrome instead of buying this. Im serious. Remember the golden rule of Topps and you'll be fine.

Average Rating =

2009 Product Leaderboard (SO FAR)

1. Topps Chrome (4/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). Upper Deck Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Philadelphia (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). Topps Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Icons (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Heroes (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Draft Edition (3/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Bowman Sterling Football (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Donruss Threads (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Donruss Classics (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Donruss Elite (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Playoff Prestige (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Bowman Draft Picks (2/5 GELLMANS)
14. Score Inscriptions (1/5 GELLMANS)
15. Leaf Rookies and Stars (0/5 GELLMANS - NR)

One More Comment On Design and Keeping It Simple

Lately, design has become my biggest pet peeve. This is mainly because of the fact that in lieu of actually putting out a set that features nicely thought out cards, manufacturers are instead just packing in all the swatches they can. Its gotten bad, really fucking bad. For example, we saw with Prestige and Prestige Chrome that Donini just recycled designs and added more busy design elements to draw our eyes away from the fact that the set was essentially the same as last year. The same thing has happened with a lot of different sets, mostly in previews for upcoming products like Absolute, LCM, and a few others.

In fact, I was just looking over the previews again for Bowman Sterling, and I couldn’t help but think ahead to how awful those designs will look on an actual card. Those lines criss-crossing all over the background is not going to help things, even though the player is much larger than on other products. See, it seems to me that elegant simplicity has been forgotten so that some amateur photoshopper can prove their chops in making grossly overstated cards with crazy lines and needless off-colored backgrounds.

The reason products like SPA have been so successful and widely supported by many card gurus is because cards like the patch autos never blast your eyes like you see in many other products. More proof: in LCM, Donini packs 4 separate swatches on some of the cards, as well as a sticker, all in addition to the crazy foilboard background you see. Why is this necessary?

Its time to set down the adobe stylus and let the photography speak for itself. No more disruptive crap on my cards, no more floating swatches, no more ridiculous color schemes, no more tiny player pictures. If you cant fit most of the player onto a card, you shouldn’t be releasing that design. We used to buy cards to see the players, not the 35 jersey pieces you can stuff onto a foldout card.

I will admit, that over the course of my design ranting, I have questioned if it is just my tastes that wretch at the complicated designs of recent Donini and Topps high end. Then I asked a few outsiders, who have never looked at cards before, and they could not believe that people liked some of the recent designs. One of the people I spoke with, a PR rep for a very prestigious car company, said that if he were running his car ads like the manufacturers were running their product designs, he would lose his job. He said that a few years ago, the good car companies started to shy away from packing shit into an ad, as well as overstating their designs. This helped out tremendously, and he was much more proud of the final product. The companies who didn’t follow suit have had many more problems generating revenue from their ads - moreso with the recession now. He confirmed that elegant simplicity is the way to go, and that I was not certifiable for saying the product designs looked awful. Lastly, he said the foilboard needs to be destroyed. I agree 100%.

I know translating the car industry to the sports card hobby isnt too great an analogy, but I do feel that there are way too many mistakes being made in terms of designing products. The bottom line is that we shouldn’t need to settle for crap, because that is no doubt what is being fed to us. They may say it is filet mignon, but its easy to see when dog food is on the plate. You can bet there will be many more rants coming down the pipeline, as there should be no shortage of fucking gross ideas as long as Donini keeps it up, and Topps takes no warning. I mean, we still havent seen anything on Triple Threads football, right?

First Look: 2009 Bowman Sterling Football

Well, Voluntarheel is going to be very happy with this preview. Personally, I think Bowman Sterling is a ridiculously priced Topps High End set, though people think it is still worth their time to break. This year, it looks like they ditched the horizontal, helmet off, foil sticker cards and made them vertical, helmet on, foil sticker cards.

The cards may look better this year, but the price will still be fucking astronomical for what you get. Basically, it breaks the golden rule of Topps products, so just buy the good looking singles.

The update to the design does look BETTER, ill give them that. However, it does remind me of those ruler designs you do in highschool during boring classes. The bottom looks like spirograph. Not much else to say for me.



h/t FCB

Product Review: 2008 Bowman Sterling Football

So, Bowman Sterling is out today. Normally, I would be pretty excited about a new product, but this set never pleases. I have rarely seen this set produce. Ever. Either way, Topps needed to put one step above chrome, and BEHOLD! We have sterling now. Anyways, lets get to the underwhelming thoughtful review.

The Good

Umm. Yeah. There isnt much good stuff to say about this set. However, the basic layout of the cards is pretty nice. If there was no player, just a template, the template is pretty cool. Its like looking at the insides of a clock or something - that’s the way I feel. However, as with ALL topps high end products, this is about all we got for good stuff. Im serious.

The Bad

Besides the awful stickers which I mention every time, I have no idea what Topps was thinking with the Jersey placement on these. I would have put the Jerseys where the name is, so that it doesn’t look like the whole card is a topple tower.

Im also going to file the entire non-jersey auto set under bad, because the cards are just "ruduckolosly" stupid looking. The poses and the placement, and pretty much everything is bad. Plus, a high end set should not need parallels. That is for crap and non-crap low end products who have to fill out their set.

Also, enough with the recessed auto windows. They look stupid as stupid could ever be. It only calls more attention to the sticker, and we all know how bad that is. I think its funny that of all the companies out there, Topps is the only company not to try on card signatures for anything anymore. The only ones they do are the RP Sigs from base Topps at 1 per jumbo case, and Bowman Chrome baseball. Get on it you dumb bastards.

Lastly, why are the basic non-auto jersey cards considered the rookies of this crapfest? The RC auto jerseys should be the focus, especially as a high end set, and therefore this is an EPIC FAIL. I couldn’t stand the cards with just an event worn piece of shit on it, because they hold no collector value in that respect. Jesus, just make a base card and call it a day.

The Ugly

Again, why are the players pictured without their helmet? Or better yet, why are they posed like they are playing their position? God fucking dammit Topps, don’t you get it? No one wants a card like this, they are fucking stupid. Give me some field shots and I will be happy, but if I get another one of these goofy ass, primped, posed, and pretentious sets again, I will stop even considering you a card company. Maybe you should switch to football glamour shots.

Also, the price of a box of these cards fucking blows. Why is it 200+ for a bunch of no-namers that wont see the field and one or two of these awful looking pieces of shit? Topps, how about you think about creating a set that has good pictures, good autos, a good price, and a nice design, and then we can talk. It seems like every company has managed this so far but you.

Lastly, lets put some first fucking names on the cards. I want a Joe Flacco card, not a Madonna like "FLACCO" card. Its like Mugatu.

I MADE THE PIANO KEY NECKTIE! I AM A LEGEND! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?!


Overall, it seems like this year sucks so far for cards. Hopefully once the good sets come out, we can revel in the dark ages that was the first few months of the card year. Fuck me!

Just a reminder: Absolute is less than a week away!!