5280 Monthly Card Show: Adam's Table

It's the day after the All-Star Game, which observant fans will note as the only day during the regular season with absolutely no major league activity.

In order to avoid a complete lack of baseball today, I thought it would be good to do a follow-up post to look at what I bought from Adam's table at last month's card show.

2007 Topps Opening Day Gold #167 Ubaldo Jimenez /2007

Adam used to own a card store in the local shopping mall, which closed last year after the management company didn't renew his lease. He's been trying to open a stand-alone store for some time now, but has been bogged down by lots of red tape. That's a shame, as he is one of my favorite dealers in the Denver area. He'll always cut a deal on recent singles from a wide variety of brands (though there is an awful lot of Bowman to get past), and he is a great source for unopened boxes from the overproduction era. Remember those sealed 1993 Topps Stadium Club packs I sent to Nick at Dime Boxes? Adam's store.

But it's not all just base singles and old wax. That Jimenez parallel at the top of this post was from his special Rockies box, and set me back a dollar or two. But even the ten cent boxes contained some real gems.

2013 Finest Green Refractors #60 Yu Darvish /199

Such as the stack of 2013 Finest. In addition to thirty or so base cards, there were a few of these Green parallels numbered to 199. In addition to this Darvish, I also found Mike Olt and Edwin Encarnacion. I'm sure a Mariner or Athletic would look great with this color scheme.

2011 Topps Diamond Stars #DS13 Jason Heyward

I've probably mentioned this before, but I don't generally buy Topps base cards until the factory set is released each year. In fact, I swung by Target on lunch today specifically for that purpose. Thus, I don't end up with a whole bunch of duplicates, but that also means I miss out on these great inserts until they migrate to the discount bins after a couple years. Topps' diamond anniversary was in full effect in 2011, leading to this excessively sparkly card that works quite well with a Braves uniform.

2014 Topps Museum Collection #80 Hank Aaron

I've heard of this set before, but certainly never expected to find it in a discount box. Topps Museum Collection is one of the most obnoxiously expensive products available, as you'll be set back well over $200 for just twenty cards. Yes, that box does promise several autograph/relic "hits", but for a month's worth of groceries? I'll pass, and will happily give up my shiniest Roosevelt dime to look like a high roller.

2013 Topps Chasing the Dream #CD17 Addison Reed

If Apple designed a baseball card, it would look something like this. It has a pretty simple design, but somehow it just works perfectly. The colors all match, the dots framing the picture remind me of the previous Mac Pro model, and the player's name complements the dot theme as though it were cut from aluminum. The most distracting element is the Topps logo itself, in the upper left. Quite an aesthetically pleasing card, and I'd like to find more from this insert set.

And finally, a non-baseball baseball card, of course from that wacky crew at Allen & Ginter.

        2012 Topps Allen and Ginter World's Tallest Buildings #WTB5 1 World Trade Center

Commonly known as the "Freedom Tower," this building near the site of the former World Trade Center twin towers was featured on a recent PBS miniseries called "Super Skyscrapers." I've always enjoyed engineering-focused TV documentaries, and I'm as fascinated by tall buildings as much as people were a century ago.

My one criticism of this insert set is that only four of the ten cards show buildings outside of New York. Of course, dissertations have been written about how New York is synonymous with skyscrapers, but there are plenty of other interesting buildings around the world that could have been chosen, like The Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, the John Hancock Center in Chicago, or the under-construction Shanghai Tower, also featured in an episode of "Super Skyscrapers."

I'll be missing this month's card show on Saturday since I'm helping my sister and her husband move into their new house (congratulations!), but Christian promises to have a box just for me once August rolls around.