1991 Bowman is a 704-card single-series set (produced by Topps) which most notably features 166 rookie cards. Bowman is a prospect driven product that wasn’t branded as such officially until 1997 when “Home of the Rookie Card” appeared on the boxes.
The most prominent rookie cards are of Jeff Bagwell, Chipper Jones, Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Mussina and Jim Thome.
The set opens up with a 5-card subset tribute to Rod Carew in light of his 3000 career hits. The set features two other subsets of note. One is the Silver Slugger Award Winners. This is the first time that a card company devoted cards to recognizing this award that had be handed out since 1980. The other recognizes minor league MVPs. Each subset features a gold emblem in the front left corner. This is one of the earliest major issue sets to feature gold.
The set is arranged in random team order by division. (AL East, AL West, NL East, NL West)
1991 Bowman is the final year they use the brown ‘cardboard’ paper stock. The card fronts are non-glossy and feature a color player photograph with a white border. The card backs are unfinished, mostly horizontal, and feature the player stats against opposing teams in 1990.
