Bowman parallels
The same card, printed in different colours, textures and print runs. The ladder is where most of the price spread inside one player lives — and where most of the pricing mistakes happen.
The ladder at a glance
Colours and runs vary by year and product, and the number stamped on the card is always the authority. What stays constant is the shape: scarcer rungs cost more, sell less often, and are priced relative to the base card.
| Rung | Typical run | Market behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Base / base Refractor | Unnumbered | The liquid reference every other rung is quoted against |
| Refractor colours | /499 | First real scarcity, modest premium |
| Speckle and mid colours | /299 – /250 | Premiums start to matter |
| Blue / Green tiers | /150 – /99 | Genuinely scarce, thinner buyer pools |
| Gold / Orange | /50 – /25 | Small markets; one sale moves the price |
| Red and lower | /5 and under | Trophy cards; sales are events |
| Superfractor | 1/1 | No comp pool — negotiated, not discovered |
What scarcity is conventionally worth
These are the multiples our own valuation falls back on when a numbered parallel has no sales of its own. They are documented assumptions, not market data — any valuation leaning on one is forced to display as low confidence.
| Print run up to | Multiple over base |
|---|---|
| /25 | 3.00× |
| /50 | 2.40× |
| /75 | 2.00× |
| /99 | 1.80× |
| /150 | 1.50× |
| /199 | 1.35× |
| /250 | 1.30× |
| /299 | 1.25× |
| /499 | 1.15× |
| above /499 | 1.05× |
Put your own numbers through the scarcity calculator to compare a print run against the premium actually being asked.
Where parallels get confusing
A page here exists only where a family behaves differently enough to need one — textures, colour collisions, one-of-ones and separate product lines. The rest of the ladder is the table above.
- Wave, Mojo and the texture parallelsTexture parallels are where cross-pricing errors happen. Orange Wave is not Orange, and Mega Mojo is not Mojo.Read more →
- True Blue, True Green and the colour collisionsSeveral blue cards, several different markets, sometimes the same print run. The collisions that cost buyers real money.Read more →
- Superfractors and 1/1s: pricing a card with no marketOne copy means no comps. What replaces the comp pool when a card cannot have one.Read more →
- Refractors and the base of the Bowman ladderThe bottom of the ladder is the reference every other rung is priced against — and frequently the best value on it.Read more →
- Sapphire and other separate product linesA different product is a different market, even for the same player in the same year. Where Sapphire and Sterling sit.Read more →
For the underlying vocabulary see the glossary; for how parallels feed a card's valuation, the methodology page. To see real ladders with live asks per rung, open any player page.