This is the last of the posts highlighting my Christmas acquisitions, namely the box of ’07 Bowman Heritage I got from Dave and Adam’s Card World. Just to keep people from being terribly bored by this post, I will stick to just the good stuff.

Before I get into it though, some quick thoughts / impressions on ’07 Bowman Heritage. First off, I have been wanting to collect this set for some time, and had been picking up cards here and there, but did not have a ton of them. Out of all retro sets, I find it to be one of the most visually pleasing. Whatever process they used to duplicate the illustrated look of the original ’52 Bowman set worked like a charm. I think the checklist is pretty manageable, and Topps kept things reasonable with only one parallel set. The prospects sub-set is a cool idea, but in general I find the problem with prospect sets is that 90% of the players turn out to be busts. The prospect cards do look cool though. That probably has more to do with them being based on the 1954 Red Heart Dog Food cards than anything else.

That being said, let’s see what’s in the box.

#175 Vernon Wells Black Parallel 5/52

This actually came out of the very first pack I opened. At first I figured, cool a black bordered parallel. Then I realized it was numbered to 52 copies. That’s cool. I just wish it was a player I cared about.

Pieces of Greatness #AD Adam Dunn Jersey

Does anyone else out there have a specific player that they seem to pull all the time when it comes to hits? I don’t have any conclusive evidence to prove this, but I can swear I end up with an inordinate amount of Adam Dunn hits. Not that I necessarily mind that. I like Adam Dunn. He’s like a big home run hitting monkey. I really like the relic cards. The one thing I find a little weird is the actual swatch window. I realize it’s supposed to incorporate the Bowman Heritage logo onto the card, but certain shapes just aren’t conducive to die-cut windows. Also, every time I look at these cards, I keep thinking that that’s a watermark, like the way Check Out My Cards puts their logo on all the scans on their site.

Signs of Greatness #WCS Cody Strait

When I first pulled this card, I figured, oh great, an autograph of some minor leaguer who might’ve been hyped up in 2007, but ended up going nowhere higher than AA. Then I saw on the back that Cody Strait’s full name is William Cody Strait. How awesome is it that he’s named after Buffalo Bill? Now instead of a career minor leaguer, I keep envisioning young Bill Cody Strait, from Sour Lake, Texas, who fought against his brothers in the War of Northern Aggression. It was during these dark years that he honed his skills both with a bat and a Colt Peacemaker. After the war was over, he was faced with a choice: should he continue to play Townball with the local nine, or make his living with a gun? Of course he chose the former path, where he never advanced any farther than AA.

Pieces of Greatness #JF Jeff Franceour Bat
That’s what I’m talking about. Frenchy. I can’t wait until memorabilia cards start showing up of him as a Met. I can’t be having all these Braves cards in my collection. I have a handful of jersey swatches of his, but this is my first bat piece. Am I the only one who gets a little bit more excited about bat pieces than jersey swatches? Anyone?

Red Man Box Topper #7 Mickey Mantle

This box actually came with 2 box toppers, this and a 2 pack of A-Roid Road to 500. I won’t talk about that second one, except to say that including that is an even bigger waste than the the Updates & Highlight cards from Heritage High Numbers. This card, however, is pretty awesome. After looking at the checklist for these things, I would have preferred pulling a Wright or Reyes, but I certainly won’t complain about the Mick. Now if I could just figure out how to store this 3.5″ x 4″ thing.

Keeping in mind that I did not have too many of these cards before, and I wanted to collect this set, I’d say that this box was a huge success based purely on the fact that it put a huge dent in my wantlist.

Tags: 2007 Bowman Heritage, Adam Dunn, Autographs, Cody Strait, Jeff Francoeur, Mickey Mantle, Red Man, relic, Vernon Wells
Filed Under: Box Break by slangon
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