2013 Bowman Platinum: The Bret Saberhagen Of Card Sets

I assume most of you that around my age or older will get the reference.  For you young 'uns, Bret Saberhagen, a pitcher for the Royals and Mets among other teams, was known for being a great pitcher in odd number years, and mediocre to bad in even number years.  See for yourself.

That's how I feel about Bowman Platinum.  I didn't much care for the 2011 set- it seemed a little cheap.  I loved the 2012 set- it seemed high end.  I don't much care for the 2013 offering, but maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't get a Puig card in the wax I bought today.

I've been looking forward to Platinum coming out, and did a quick check at Walmart during lunch today and grabbed a trio of value packs.  I have to say I was a little let down:

 I'm not disappointed to get a Manny Machado card.  I'm always good with that.  But the cards seem a little flat to me.  This is a time when the scanner does too much justice to the cards.  They aren't as nice as I think they look in scans.  I'm not smart enough to explain what's wrong with them.  They just don't do it for me.

Again, maybe my disappointment lies with not getting any Puig cards.  Christian Yelich is ok I guess.

Or perhaps my disappointment stems from not getting any cards of players I like in the purple parallel cards that come in the value packs.  I got one Ranger, and nothing else I care about.

Getting two doubles right off the bat is pretty crappy too, but I'll just chalk that up to bad luck.

One aspect of the cards I was really not impressed with were the "ice" parallels:

These look great in the scan, like there is a crystal background with a refractor-ish finish.  But they look like crap in hand.  Just bland,  boring non crystally backgrounds with no life.  Blech.

On a positive note, there are some decent inserts, especially these cut cards:

And the top prospects cards are not bad either, although, this is again a case where the scan actually looks a little prettier than the cards in real life.   These cards just aren't as bright and shiny as they look here.

Finally, Bowman is continuing to insert blue chrome parallels of well known Bowman rookie cards.  I really like these and was happy to get one in these packs:

I guess I'll skip building Platinum this year.  There are a few Ranger autos in the set that I really want- Jorge Alfaro and Rougned Odor for those of you keeping notes at home.  But otherwise I'm not getting involved so other than the Posey and Machado, everything is available for trade for those that are interested.

Looking forward to a rebound set next year!