A homemade '89 Bowman...

Just to have something to look at, here's my '89 Bowman WiiBen card. Slightly different pose than the '88 Score card, but you can clearly tell that it's the same photographer.

Greetings.

Hello and welcome to 1989 Bowman. We're going to be taking a trip back to 1989 and having a pack by pack look at Bowman's re-entry into the baseball card hobby.

I just ordered a box on Amazon for less than $20 shipped and I hope to have it in my hands by the end of the week.

Today the name Bowman means Chrome, rookies and Draft Picks & Prospects, and you don't see much about this set. The size of this inaugural set limited its appeal to younger collectors and has thus nearly been lost to time.

At three and three quarters of an inch tall, the cards are a quarter inch taller than standard, and the hobby, and makers of supplies, just weren't ready for this non-standard issue. I recall buying one pack back in 1989 and thinking to myself "what the hell am I going to do with these?" That one pack got stuffed (literally) into a box and twenty years later the tops of the cards are bent and mangled.

So this is a set, unlike the 88 Score set, that I'm essentially starting from scratch on. Well, I have one '89 Bowman in decent condition: the Steve Avery card featured on 1988 Score a few days ago.

If you were a reader of 1988 Score at the beginning, this site will follow much the same pattern. One pack a day with highlights (and lowlights) featured.

Stay tuned and once the box gets here, we're going to get under way.

Just unpacking and painting the walls...

Nothing to see here yet. We're just moving in and getting a fresh coat of paint on the walls.