Box Break Recap: 1997 Leaf (Series 1) and 2020 Bowman Platinum

I'm back with my final two box recaps that I needed to get caught up on prior to this past week's boxes...*sigh*  The life of a group break host is never easy!

Anyhow, like I said I have two boxes to recap here.  The first is a "bonus box" of 202 Bowman Platinum and the second box is our "regularly scheduled" box of 1997 Leaf Series 1.

We'll start with the Bowman Platinum hanger box.  This box promised brought us a pair of serially numbered parallels including this gorgeous gold Jo Adell card for the Angels numbered 47/50!

Our other numbered card was this nice purple Carlos Correa for the Astros, numbered 053/250.

The other two parallels from the box were of the unnumbered variety - but both are very shiny and sparkly!

Jorge Soler (Royals) and William Contreras (Braves).  Of the four, only Contreras was a new player name to me which bodes well for a Bowman product!

Speaking of boding well for a Bowman product, I'd be remiss if I didn't show off at least a couple of base cards as well.  I have to say, the 2020 Bowman Platinum set is a lot nicer than most Bowman cards...not that that is a high bar to cross over!

As you can see from the scanned cards, the set is a mix of veterans and rookies - we pulled a few nice rookies including the Hader and the Lewis!

Moving on to the box of 1997 Leaf Series 1 (we also ripped a box of 1997 Leaf Series 2 earlier this week but you'll have to wait for a future post for the box recap on that one)!  

Anyhow, for '97 Leaf Series 1 we'll begin with a look at the base card design:

The design is clean and simple for the most part though Leaf did make the player names sort of tricky to read.  The card backs are just "okay" but overall I like the cards quite a bit.  

Each box of 1997 Leaf Series 1 has overall stated insert odds of 1:6 packs - or four per box since there are 24 packs in a box.  We ended up with two of the "regular" Fractal Matrix parallel cards:

Scott Karl (Brewers) and Osvaldo Fernandez (Giants)...not exactly the "big names" you might hope to pull but still nice cards for the two teams.  

As for the Fractal Matrix parallels, it's a rather confusing system that Leaf came up with!  There are regular versions and die-cut versions...and then there are Bronze cards, Silver cards, and Gold cards.  The two cards above are both Bronze cards - and our third Fractal Matrix card in the box (this time a die-cut one) is also a Bronze.

From what I can tell, the die-cut X-Axis Bronze cards were limited to 400 copies while the non-die cut X-Axis cards were limited to 1600 copies.  None of the Fractal Matrix cards are actually serially numbered, however.

Finally, our last insert from the box and it's my favorite!  

That's a Dress for Success card of Gary Sheffield of the Marlins.  The Dress for Success cards are printed on nylon and definitely nicely mimic the idea of a jersey on the front of the card!  This particular Sheffield is numbered 2321/3500 on the back - a great hit for the Marlins (and for Daniel MacBeth who claimed Florida/Miami)!  

Overall, this was another pair of fun boxes to break as part of Breaker's Club #4!  Now that I'm all caught up with last week's boxes, I need to get the boxes from this previous week written up as well.  All in due time I guess - and with only one more week of Breaker's Club #4 to go I guess I'll be caught up soon enough!