In today’s Hobby scene, a collector would have to spend a fortune on a “Rainbow”. Sure, attaining a base card of your favorite ball player is a breeze but try putting together the half dozen or more Refractor colors all more rare than the next and you could be looking at $100 or more, depending on the player. If you somehow manage to find all the colors, your next goal would be to find rare “1 of 1″ printing plates which might all show up at once or spread out over years.
In 1997, a Rainbow consisted of a base card, a Refractor version and the king of parallels back then, an Atomic Refractor. This Rainbow cost me less than $20 dollars to put together and looks absolutely amazing in my collection of the 1997 Bowman Master Set. Today, two of the four cards I purchased last week showed up, which brings my count of ‘97 Bowman to 13 of 32.
The base odds were 1:24, 1:48 for the Refractor and 1:96 for the Atomic Refractor.
You can click on the image to see a full-size, high quality scan.
P.S. – Wax Heaven is back on Facebook (LINK).
Simple rainbows, can’t go wrong with them. I have a few myself: 1994 Bowman’s Best and Refractor, 1995 Bowman’s Best and Refractor, and the 1997 Bowman’s Best, Refractor, and Atomic Refractor.