2023 Bowman University Alabama Crimson Tide Football Forum

I realize there’s no solution to this, but sometimes it helps to type our frustration.

The situation: The Bowman University Alabama Crimson Tide set has 100 cards in the base set, and plenty of insert subsets as well. I ordered two hobby boxes from Fanatics (about $61 combined, including postage and fees). Each box has 10 packs, with five cards in each pack. I figured I would get most of the base set (and could buy or trade for the rest) and maybe pull some interesting inserts.

With Topps products, there’s always the possibility that a box will mostly duplicate the base cards from a box you’ve already bought, but this scenario isn’t even that good. The first box had 37 base-set cards, all different. The second box had 37 base-set cards, and every single one was already in the first box. Not 29 of 37, or 32 of 37. All 37.

But, here’s the crazy part: there were only 28 different base-set cards in the second box. The remaining nine were duplicates that were already in the second box. I now have two duplicates of Nos. 4, 11, 28, 37, 51, 64, 70, 83, 95.

Also, an odd thing about the set: the 100 base-set cards doesn’t include the starting quarterback, Jalen Milroe. It has four different quarterbacks in the set, including the guy who transferred to Alabama at the end of April, but not the starter. And it isn’t like the starter joined the team in the summer. He was one of the two who very publicly competed for the job in the spring.

I’m wondering if Topps had to get every single player to sign off on being part of this Bowman set. According to our database, Milroe is on 468 cards, but they’re all Leaf products.

Either way, I’m thinking about calling it a loss and just put everything in the set on my For Sale/Trade list, except for a handful of the inserts. I’ll just consider this yet another lesson that as a buyer, we should always beware.

Thanks for allowing me to vent. If all of you were here, I’d give everyone who read this far a cookie!

Feel your pain. Wow that sucks. 

Surely add your dupes to the trade list. Don't give on what you like to collect just because of the nonsense of the contents of the box you ripped. 

This just proves the point why tcdb exists to trade and have fun.

What kind of cookie?

Ouch.  I haven't bought packs regularly since about 1992.  With stories like this, its going to stay that way. 

Milroe NIL deal is probably with Leaf

I really like snickerdoodles, although a friend told me, he was disappointed when he was served a snickerdoodle for the first time to realize there were no bits of snickers in the cookie.

OK, clearly I'm not that bright. After calming down after the trouble with my previous Bowman University Alabama boxes, I found a cheap hobby box of these cards on eBay, and the seller shipped super quick because it arrived today. I opened it this evening.

To recap, here's the story from the start, if you don't want to read through the first post on this thread:

--Bought two hobby boxes from Fanatics. First box had 37 base-set cards, all of which were different.

--The second box had 37 base-set cards. All were duplicates of the first box, and only 28 were different. The remaining nine were duplicates of the cards that already were in the second box.

--The third box that came today ... oh, joy. It had 37 base-set cards, with 10 that weren't in either of the two boxes I bought from Fanatics. The remaining 27? They all were duplicates of the base-set cards I received in both boxes from Fanatics.

I either must have extraordinarily bad luck or Topps had a sorting error. It's likely just my bad luck, but I'm not going to test that theory any longer. If you think I was dumb to buy a third box, I agree with you 100 percent.

If any family members of players represented on those duplicates wanted cards of their football player, they should come to me. Justice Haynes' family would definitely be in luck. He's pictured on three different cards in the set, and I've got seven total duplicates of his cards! I've met Ty Simpson's father a two or three times. Maybe I should look him up and tell him he's welcome to all three of my duplicates of his son's card.

Here's what makes me feel even more dumb: In searching through eBay, I found a handful of sellers offering the full 100-card base set, and even with postage and tax, the cost is about the same as what I paid Fanatics for the first two hobby boxes I bought. In the future, I really need to be smarter.