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Topps holding back key cards, grading them to increase replacement value?
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Mysterious 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant Autos Surface
March 27, 2016 By Jeff Hwang
Save Up to 80% on Authentic Collectibles and Memorabilia at SportsMemorabilia.com During Our Post-Season Clearance Event
The spring 2014 Bowman release included what were thought to be the most highly coveted 1st Bowman Chrome autos of Chicago Cubs then-prospect Kris Bryant. But as I wrote here in an article dated September 29, 2014, those 2014-year cards labeled “1st Bowman” used by Topps to promote the spring Bowman release turned out not to be Bryant’s 1st Bowman Chrome auto at all; Topps would issue a full range of trumping 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Bryant autos in a variety of Bowman-branded releases throughout 2014, thus impacting the value of every 2014 Bowman Chrome Kris Bryant auto collectors had purchased in the spring.
It would be the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Superfractor 1/1 that was listed on eBay for $90k and sold for an undisclosed price in April 2015. Meanwhile, the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft autos continue to trade at a significant premium to their 2014 counterparts.
It’s now March 2016, and it appears the odd happenings with 2013 Bowman Chrome Bryant autos are far from being over. And it starts with this Black Wave #/50 variation, which it seems few people knew even existed until it was listed on eBay in raw (ungraded) form earlier this month.
2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant Black Wave numbered to 50
2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant Black Wave auto numbered to 50
Now where did that card come from?
No such Black Wave autos were issued in packs of any kind in 2013 or 2014 (or 2015 for that matter). A Google search for “2013 Bowman Chrome Kris Bryant Black Wave” turns up zilch. And even this “definitive guide to collecting Kris Bryant Bowman Chrome autographs” from dailywax.com dated March 31, 2015 mentions every parallel variation of the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant auto – except the Black Wave #/50s, and also a set of Blue Wave #/50 parallel autos that apparently nobody has seen before, either.
Adding further to the intrigue, the only other evidence that the Blue Wave #/50 and Black Wave #/50 autos exist lies in the BGS population report (and also the Beckett online price guide), along with a single, notable grading date.
Blue Wave, Black Wave, and a 125-Card BGS Submission
A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Jesse Koontz, who is a Kris Bryant fan/super-collector from Chicago. Like me, Koontz collected cards as a kid in the early 90s, quit for a couple of decades, and recently got back into the hobby in a big way.
Koontz’s version of getting back into the hobby has meant trying to build a rainbow collection of Bryant’s 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft autographed cards, including these BGS 10/10 Pristine monsters.
Autographed Kris Bryant Bowman Chrome cards
In his quest, Koontz had made a series of startling discoveries, starting with the ungraded Black Wave #/50 listed on eBay.
Having never seen a Black Wave variation of the card before, Koontz turned to the BGS population report for answers. What he found were 125 sequentially-numbered entries for 2013 Bowman Chrome Bryant autos of a variety of colors, which included 15 Blue Wave autos and 15 Black Wave autos:
60 Base Autos (#8297424 – #8297483)
10 Black #/35 Autos (#8297484 – #8297493)
15 Black Wave #/50 Autos (#8297494 – #8297508)
15 Blue Wave #/50 Autos (#8297509 – #8297523)
25 Green Autos #/75 (#8297524 – #8297548)
2013 Kris Bryant blue black wave refractors BGS pop report
Screen shots of Blue Wave #/50 and Black Wave #/50 autos in the BGS population report.
2013 Bowman Black/Blue Wave
The sequential BGS numbering is the first clue that all 125 cards were graded on the same date and likely submitted by the same person (or entity). And as it turns out, it appears all 125 cards were graded on the same day: September 3, 2014.
BGS Grading submission serial number
If that date sets off alarms, it’s because as of September 3, 2014 no color parallels of the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant auto had yet surfaced – only base autos had thus far showed up– in the June 2014 Bowman Inception and July 2014 Bowman Platinum releases. The first 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant color parallel autos would not appear until the release of 2014 Bowman Chrome several weeks later.
This brings up more questions:
How is it that one person (or entity) wound up with 65 colored refractor parallels of the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Bryant auto several weeks before anyone else knew for sure that they even existed?
How is it that this submission included 15 Black Wave #/50 and 15 Blue Wave #/50 parallels that, as of March 2016, had never been issued in packs and few people (if any) even knew existed?
Is Topps Grading Cards for Replacements?
On Wednesday, March 23, the question was posed in a thread on the Blowout Cards forums. Collectors believed that Topps was:
Holding back cards as replacements for damaged cards or other redemptions
Having those cards graded by BGS, and
Using the enhanced value of the graded cards to lower the cost of replacing cards.
In the message board thread, some feared the previously unknown cards may have been backdoored (literally walked out the door) by a Topps employee, but that strikes me as unlikely. For one thing, somebody showing up at BGS on September 3, 2014 with 65 copies of unreleased colored refractors (including Blue Waves and Black Waves) would almost certainly have raised red flags.
For another, several forum members in the thread confirmed having received graded 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant autos from Topps as replacements, including base, Green #/75, and Black #/35 cards with BGS serial numbers matching those in the September 3, 2014 submission.
In other words, the most likely scenario appears to be that Topps itself had those 125 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant autos graded by BGS.
Sports Collectors Daily reached out to Topps for an explanation but as of this writing, no one from the company has responded.
More Questions
There are more questions and potentially a lot of issues here that collectors would probably like to get a handle on:
If Topps is responsible for the 15 graded Black Wave #/50 and 15 graded Blue Wave #/50 autos, then where are the others?
Did Topps keep all 50 Black Waves and all 50 Blue Waves to use as replacements? If so, why weren’t they graded? Or if not, then where did the raw Black Wave #/50 auto listed on eBay come from?
Is it common practice for Topps to keep entire parallel sets (e.g. all 50 Blue Wave or Black Wave refractors) for only certain players (e.g. high-value players) to use as replacements?
The Sept. 3, 2014 BGS submission included 15 of the 50 Black Waves (30%), 15/50 Blues Waves (30%), 10/35 Black Refractors (29%), and 25/75 Green Refractors (33%). Is it common for Topps to hold back as many as 29%-33% of cards of a given issue for replacements, or is it just top tier prospects like Kris Bryant?
If Topps is in fact having cards graded, should collectors wonder what’s stopping them from cherry-picking the highest-quality copies of a given card after it is produced and packing out the weaker ones for collectors to pull from packs?
And if Topps is having cards graded itself, are they only doing this for certain players? Or is Topps doing it for all players in equal quantities?
These are questions that collectors are hoping will be answered. And if the answer to any of these questions is that Topps is withholding cards for certain players in different quantities than others, collectors can’t be blamed for thinking they’re sitting in a poker game where the dealer is exercising the option to keep all of the aces for himself.
For a timeline of the Bowman Chrome Bryant events, click here.
Jeff Hwang is the best-selling author of Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy, the three-volume Advanced PLO series, and The Modern Baseball Card Investor. Follow Jeff on Twitter @RivalSchoolX.
Mysterious 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant Autos Surface
March 27, 2016 By Jeff Hwang
Save Up to 80% on Authentic Collectibles and Memorabilia at SportsMemorabilia.com During Our Post-Season Clearance Event
The spring 2014 Bowman release included what were thought to be the most highly coveted 1st Bowman Chrome autos of Chicago Cubs then-prospect Kris Bryant. But as I wrote here in an article dated September 29, 2014, those 2014-year cards labeled “1st Bowman” used by Topps to promote the spring Bowman release turned out not to be Bryant’s 1st Bowman Chrome auto at all; Topps would issue a full range of trumping 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Bryant autos in a variety of Bowman-branded releases throughout 2014, thus impacting the value of every 2014 Bowman Chrome Kris Bryant auto collectors had purchased in the spring.
It would be the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Superfractor 1/1 that was listed on eBay for $90k and sold for an undisclosed price in April 2015. Meanwhile, the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft autos continue to trade at a significant premium to their 2014 counterparts.
It’s now March 2016, and it appears the odd happenings with 2013 Bowman Chrome Bryant autos are far from being over. And it starts with this Black Wave #/50 variation, which it seems few people knew even existed until it was listed on eBay in raw (ungraded) form earlier this month.
2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant Black Wave numbered to 50
2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant Black Wave auto numbered to 50
Now where did that card come from?
No such Black Wave autos were issued in packs of any kind in 2013 or 2014 (or 2015 for that matter). A Google search for “2013 Bowman Chrome Kris Bryant Black Wave” turns up zilch. And even this “definitive guide to collecting Kris Bryant Bowman Chrome autographs” from dailywax.com dated March 31, 2015 mentions every parallel variation of the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant auto – except the Black Wave #/50s, and also a set of Blue Wave #/50 parallel autos that apparently nobody has seen before, either.
Adding further to the intrigue, the only other evidence that the Blue Wave #/50 and Black Wave #/50 autos exist lies in the BGS population report (and also the Beckett online price guide), along with a single, notable grading date.
Blue Wave, Black Wave, and a 125-Card BGS Submission
A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Jesse Koontz, who is a Kris Bryant fan/super-collector from Chicago. Like me, Koontz collected cards as a kid in the early 90s, quit for a couple of decades, and recently got back into the hobby in a big way.
Koontz’s version of getting back into the hobby has meant trying to build a rainbow collection of Bryant’s 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft autographed cards, including these BGS 10/10 Pristine monsters.
Autographed Kris Bryant Bowman Chrome cards
In his quest, Koontz had made a series of startling discoveries, starting with the ungraded Black Wave #/50 listed on eBay.
Having never seen a Black Wave variation of the card before, Koontz turned to the BGS population report for answers. What he found were 125 sequentially-numbered entries for 2013 Bowman Chrome Bryant autos of a variety of colors, which included 15 Blue Wave autos and 15 Black Wave autos:
60 Base Autos (#8297424 – #8297483)
10 Black #/35 Autos (#8297484 – #8297493)
15 Black Wave #/50 Autos (#8297494 – #8297508)
15 Blue Wave #/50 Autos (#8297509 – #8297523)
25 Green Autos #/75 (#8297524 – #8297548)
2013 Kris Bryant blue black wave refractors BGS pop report
Screen shots of Blue Wave #/50 and Black Wave #/50 autos in the BGS population report.
2013 Bowman Black/Blue Wave
The sequential BGS numbering is the first clue that all 125 cards were graded on the same date and likely submitted by the same person (or entity). And as it turns out, it appears all 125 cards were graded on the same day: September 3, 2014.
BGS Grading submission serial number
If that date sets off alarms, it’s because as of September 3, 2014 no color parallels of the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant auto had yet surfaced – only base autos had thus far showed up– in the June 2014 Bowman Inception and July 2014 Bowman Platinum releases. The first 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant color parallel autos would not appear until the release of 2014 Bowman Chrome several weeks later.
This brings up more questions:
How is it that one person (or entity) wound up with 65 colored refractor parallels of the 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Bryant auto several weeks before anyone else knew for sure that they even existed?
How is it that this submission included 15 Black Wave #/50 and 15 Blue Wave #/50 parallels that, as of March 2016, had never been issued in packs and few people (if any) even knew existed?
Is Topps Grading Cards for Replacements?
On Wednesday, March 23, the question was posed in a thread on the Blowout Cards forums. Collectors believed that Topps was:
Holding back cards as replacements for damaged cards or other redemptions
Having those cards graded by BGS, and
Using the enhanced value of the graded cards to lower the cost of replacing cards.
In the message board thread, some feared the previously unknown cards may have been backdoored (literally walked out the door) by a Topps employee, but that strikes me as unlikely. For one thing, somebody showing up at BGS on September 3, 2014 with 65 copies of unreleased colored refractors (including Blue Waves and Black Waves) would almost certainly have raised red flags.
For another, several forum members in the thread confirmed having received graded 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant autos from Topps as replacements, including base, Green #/75, and Black #/35 cards with BGS serial numbers matching those in the September 3, 2014 submission.
In other words, the most likely scenario appears to be that Topps itself had those 125 2013 Bowman Chrome Draft Kris Bryant autos graded by BGS.
Sports Collectors Daily reached out to Topps for an explanation but as of this writing, no one from the company has responded.
More Questions
There are more questions and potentially a lot of issues here that collectors would probably like to get a handle on:
If Topps is responsible for the 15 graded Black Wave #/50 and 15 graded Blue Wave #/50 autos, then where are the others?
Did Topps keep all 50 Black Waves and all 50 Blue Waves to use as replacements? If so, why weren’t they graded? Or if not, then where did the raw Black Wave #/50 auto listed on eBay come from?
Is it common practice for Topps to keep entire parallel sets (e.g. all 50 Blue Wave or Black Wave refractors) for only certain players (e.g. high-value players) to use as replacements?
The Sept. 3, 2014 BGS submission included 15 of the 50 Black Waves (30%), 15/50 Blues Waves (30%), 10/35 Black Refractors (29%), and 25/75 Green Refractors (33%). Is it common for Topps to hold back as many as 29%-33% of cards of a given issue for replacements, or is it just top tier prospects like Kris Bryant?
If Topps is in fact having cards graded, should collectors wonder what’s stopping them from cherry-picking the highest-quality copies of a given card after it is produced and packing out the weaker ones for collectors to pull from packs?
And if Topps is having cards graded itself, are they only doing this for certain players? Or is Topps doing it for all players in equal quantities?
These are questions that collectors are hoping will be answered. And if the answer to any of these questions is that Topps is withholding cards for certain players in different quantities than others, collectors can’t be blamed for thinking they’re sitting in a poker game where the dealer is exercising the option to keep all of the aces for himself.
For a timeline of the Bowman Chrome Bryant events, click here.
Jeff Hwang is the best-selling author of Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy, the three-volume Advanced PLO series, and The Modern Baseball Card Investor. Follow Jeff on Twitter @RivalSchoolX.
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Comments
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
If this was done by topps, this is a very shady business practice. I feel that no cards should be held back as replacements. Everything should be inserted. If there are damaged cards received from packs, those cards should be shipped to topps, topps should then reprint the necessary amount and shred the damaged items. This is the only legitimate option of replacing cards I can come up with. As for "replacements" for cards never produced, that is a whole other topic.
Cards held back from circulation for replacements are not used for damaged items, they are used primarily to replace redemptions that for one reason or another can't be filled. Contrary to popular belief, signing cards for Trading card companies is not a pressing concern for most athletes and getting the product back in time for release (or at all) is a struggle all companies deal with. Even retired players assume that the "please return by xx/xx/xxxx" attached to the package is more a general guideline than a necessity. Meanwhile anxious collectors hold unfilled redemptions and flood Topps customer service with daily calls wondering when they card will be finished or what they can get as a replacement. The issue now becomes Topps, or whatever trading card company is on the hook, acknowledging secondary card prices. Doing so asserts the company to possible additional liabilty (for example in the instance of damage product). Not doing so prevents them from issuing fair redemption replacements. Some nefarious collectors will even inflate prices of similar items through fake sales in an attempt raise the total of value of their unfilled redemptions. Basically the entire process is a mess that Topps attempted to revamp at the start of last year, to mixed results.
For what you are describing (damaged product) in almost all instances I have witnessed, Topps will replace with damaged cards unopened product. Topps, to my knowledge, has only reprinted cards on a handful of occasions and Heaven and Earth were moved to do so.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
It may not be practical, but I am sure there would be legal troubles for topps is push came to shove. If odds are stated and cards are held back and not released, the odds posted are fraudulent. I don't collect any currently issued cards, so no horse in the race for me, it just seems very cut and dried.
Topps legal is all over this I'm sure, they use "approximate" and "not guaranteed" A LOT when stating odds... and the use of redemption cards helps them skirt past this issue. It's obvious that some are held back... otherwise the "no purchase necessary" option wouldn't exist (where you mail in an index card for the same odds of getting a relic/auto in a pack). This is one reason I don't buy much modern unopened, except for my two boys to rip... the other reason is that you can't really keep modern unopened without it eventually forming a brick of cards that will never be close to Mint.