Mystery Contest Winnings

I'm going to ask for some help here, if you fancy yourself a Bowman expert. Read on...

Sport Card Collectors held a contest to pick the results of 6 different games on a Sunday in July, and I got all 6 correct. The tiebreaker was total runs scored. I went with 46, and the total was 47, earning me first prize. 2 of the prizes were pick-your-favorite-sport surprises, and I, of course, went with baseball. I had no idea what would show up in the mail.

The big prize turned out to be this Adrian Gonzalez relic from Upper Deck's last-gasp 2010 set. I appreciate a player like Adrian, who mocked the Cardinals for calling the Dodgers' celebrations "Mickey Mouse" by putting up mouse ears during a home run trot in the 2013 NLCS. That's how baseball should be, a bunch of guys having fun and giving each other trouble. Let's drop the unwritten rule stuff, and the "I'm offended" beanballs.

2010 Upper Deck
UD Game Jersey #UDGJ-GO Adrian Gonzalez

The rest of the prize was 2 retail packs of 2014 Bowman Platinum. Here's where I need help. I really like Bowman cards, until I go to enter them in my checklist and see the massive numbers of parallels. It's been this way since at least 1995, which I know for a fact because I have a 1995 Bowman card sitting on my desk, waiting for me to get the time to investigate whether or not it's a parallel. I may have to resort to buying some more from that set just to have something in my hand to judge it against.

Anyway, onto the help. If I've miscategorized any of these, please leave me a comment, and you can even call me whatever bad name you want for being unable to decipher parallels.

2014 Bowman Platinum
#49 Freddie Freeman
#100 Alex Guerrero

So far, so good. I believe these are both plain old base cards.

2014 Bowman Platinum - Prospects
#BPP61 Billy McKinney
#BPP81 Jake Barrett

Here's the first confusing part of Bowman, the prospects "base" set. But again, I think I've nailed these down. The background appears the same as the Freeman and Guerrero under the light.

2014 Bowman Platinum
Prospects Chrome Refractor #BPCP83 Trevor Story
Prospects X-Fractor #BPCP14 Mason Williams

Now, I realize trying to see a chrome coating on a scanned image is nearly an impossibility, but maybe you've scanned some of your chrome parallels and can see the similarities. The pattern on the background of the X-Fractor, at least I assume that's what it is, is easier to see. Neither of these had any serial numbering, leading me to believe these are the proper insert sets.

2014 Bowman Platinum
Top Prospects #TP-AB Archie Bradley
Cutting Edge Stars #CES-YD Yu Darvish

Almost as if these packs knew I was confused, they dropped this Top Prospects card on me. There's also a Top Prospects Die Cut Refractor set. This card is Die Cut. Logically, this is a Top Prospects Die Cut Refractor, right? Wrong. The Die Cut Refractor set is numbered to 25, and this has no numbering. Thus, it's just a Top Prospects card. At least the final Yu Darvish card was less confusing. The only other Cutting Edge Stars set (as far as I can tell) is a relic set, so this one's place in the checklist is plainly visible.

I want to reiterate to make very clear that I like Bowman cards. I get excited to open them, or get them in trades, or win them as prizes. It's when I then attempt to fulfill my desire to catalog every card I have, that I start to get a headache from the inscrutable checklist. Maybe I should just have one big Bowman box, a free for all of cards sorted by team and then shininess. Everyone loves shininess.

Thank you to Sport Card Collectors, and go check them out for more monthly/weekly contests.