What in the Hall?

The day Hall of Fame inductees are announced is always exciting.  As a baseball nerd, I always enjoy looking at the voting results and seeing who is trending up or running out of eligibility.  Gavin posted a great piece yesterday reflecting on when he might see another HoF inductee for the Padres, and it got me thinking.  As a Pirate fan, expecting less has sort of become a given.  The losing streak.  Getting number 1 draft picks in some of the weakest drafts.  Having one significant player in the Mitchell Report.  We can't even cheat properly!

I thought about the next time I might see a former Pirate in Cooperstown.  Bonds, if he eventually gets in.  But he left Pittsburgh when I was 4 years old.  Possibly McCutchen if he can continue to string together strong seasons through his 30's, but he doesn't rack up enough hits or homers to have a chance at any major milestones.

And then it hit me.  I haven't seen a single Hall of Famer play in black and gold on a baseball field.  Don't get me wrong.  I've gotten to see an embarrassment of riches play in Pittsburgh.  They've just always done it on ice or a football field. 

The last time a Hall of Famer suited up in a major league game for the Pittsburgh Pirates was October 3rd, 1982.  Willie Stargell had a pinch hit in the Pirates final game of the season.

That was 35 years ago.  A lot has changed.  In 1982, free agency was six years old.  Since then, we've had seemingly constant player movement between teams.  Seeing a Hall of Famer play for 5, 6 different teams in their career is commonplace.  Steroids helped players extend their peak playing years, playing longer and at a higher level that would keep them in demand to many teams. 

Whether it's a future Hall of Famer like Ichiro eeking out a few more seasons in Miami or a hired gun like John Smoltz hoping to put a playoff contender over the top, it seems like every team but the Bucs has seen a Hall of Famer in recent years.

So I did some digging.

And I was right.  The Pirates have the longest streak in the majors since a Hall of Fame player suited up in uniform for them.  And it's not even close.  Second place is a tie between the Royals, who last had George Brett in 1993 and the Rockies, who have haven't ever had a Hall of Famer play for them (though Larry Walker may change that in the next couple years).

So there you have it.  Insult to injury.  If I wasn't on board with Barry Bonds' Hall of Fame case before, I sure am now.

Blowing the Dust Off

So I guess it's been a minute.  Or more accurately, all of 2017.  Collecting has sort of slowly drifted towards the background over the last couple years.  In 2017, I went to one card show.  I can probably count the number of ebay purchases I made on one hand.  I couldn't even tell you what sets came out this past year.

Collecting had become more of a chore than a hobby.  I've seen that happen to collectors over the years, but didn't understand until I found myself in that spot.  I had to check my ebay saved searches, scan COMC daily for new cards listed, and keep up on the increasingly complicated checklists and parallels Topps would release.  I would have my day ruined if I saw a completed auction or a COMC sale of a card I had missed out on.  All in all, the relaxing part was pretty much gone.

Add in the stress of work, new projects of owning a house, and my growing frustration with the way the Pirates continue to frustrate me as a fan and it was time for a break.  And honestly I'd be lying if I said I missed it, even though I would occasionally head to my basement card setup to sort some cards or send the occasional TTM request.

So why am I here?  Because for all of the things I found myself hating, there are so many thing I have loved about collecting over the years.  And instead of focusing on what new cards I've picked up, I want to get back to writing and sharing the tens of thousands of great cards I already have in my collection.

Truth be told, I've got the bug again.  We were at Target doing some Christmas shopping a few weeks back, and I decided to grab a pack of Update.  It was always one of my favorite sets of the year, and the price is right.  One pack. 

Turns out it was probably the best pack I've opened.  No, there wasn't a high dollar card.  or even a "hit."  But nestled right in the center of the pack was a Josh Bell SP followed by a Willie Stargell insert.

Like I said, nothing to set the world on fire.  But I've always had crummy luck with pulling Pirate anything out of packs.  And even though they're probably $1-2 cards, it was that that childhood joy not of something that has resale worth, but simply getting a card you like. 

So let's see where 2018 goes.  At the very least, I can guarantee I'll post more than in 2017.

The Value of a Dollar

There's no question about it.  I'm a bargain shopper.  And that applies in spades when it comes to vintage cards.  The great thing about large shows is that they tend to draw dealers from across the country, which will knock prices down to about their bottom basement price.  The Robert Morris show has done wonders for my vintage team sets over the past few years.  The sheer selection has allowed me to knock out just about every common, with only superstars like Clemente and Stargell remaining from their early sets and those pesky short printed high numbers.

I actually didn't do as well on vintage this year as in the past.  That certainly had a lot to do with the influx of modern dealers.  Last year, I spent a lot of time digging through vintage boxes simply because there...wasn't anything else to look through.  But with more modern this year, most of my box digging was centered around the more recent stuff.  And the vintage bins I did look through mostly just had the same common cards I already had priced at $1 or $2.

But I was going through one dealer's $.25 box.  A lot was more or less junk - late 80's star commons.  A few serial numbered cards.  Lots of 70's commons.  And...half a dozen Pirate cards I needed.  Wait, huh?

The four cards above are definitely of the well-loved variety.  But at just a quarter a piece, they are welcomed placeholders that cross a card off my needs list, and can always be upgraded if a better copy ever presents itself at a great price.  And that's just what I did with the Rice RC.  I had picked up a really, really, really beat up copy off COMC for $.65 as a set filler.  While this copy isn't close to mint, it's a major upgrade in eye appeal at less than half the price.  Just ignore the crop job at the bottom, which is just a result of my scanner being a jerk

I'm always a little amazed how many great looking cards can be found in discount bins.  I had no idea this card even existed, but was thrilled to find a Quasar card of former Steeler and Mountaineer Amos Zereoue.  The design was actually reused in UD's Fleer Retro product, and there is a Geno Smith version I still need to track down.  Now the big question becomes which binder this goes into.

And at a buck each, I was thrilled to find two cards that had been sitting in my COMC watchlist forever, but priced around $5.

This Lemieux/Bradshaw just became one of my favorite cards in my collection, featuring two of Pittsburgh's greatest set in front of a beautiful painted skyline.  How much better can it get?

There just aren't any avenues that provide the kind of bang for your buck that card shows do.  I love COMC.  I love still buy on ebay.  And sites like Sportlots and Justcommons are great.  But there is a degree of maximizing profits that can be avoided at a show.  Most of the dime and quarter boxes I dig through are the leftovers from large deals that were long ago into the black for the dealer.  Anything else they sell out of their inventory is just icing on the cake.  And that always seems to equal great finds for my collections, and is far less irritating than the COMC seller willing to sit for years and years on a card priced well above what anyone is willing to pay, hoping just to find that one person willing to overpay someday.

I don't care how overdone Bowman is, or how watered down the checklist is.  A gold refractor of a Pirate is just too nice looking not to own for $1, even if the player will probably never hit AA.

Or to find oddball sets, like these Cooperstown Orange parallels that were only available in retail.

Or these Pinnacle Artist Proof cards.  This is apparently the blue version, which I didn't even know existed.  And I think I paid 20 times more attention to the set than the rest of the hobby did.  Again, I'd guess it was a retail exclusive.  But I honestly have no clue, and didn't find any info online.  Anyone have the inside scoop?

There's nothing that beats finding a big stack of cards from a dealer, and when all the dollar and quarter cards are counted up discovering that you just nabbed a great stack of cardboard you'd be hardpressed to even find elsewhere for less than the cost of a fast food lunch.  Long live the card show!

No Cardboard, No Cry

The 4th of July usually means fireworks and baseball, but we decided to switch it up a bit and head to Rogers, OH for some flea market shopping.  We actually went last year over the 4th weekend as well, which was our first trip there.  It's a good flea market, but with any market it can be hit or miss.  For the number of vendors and the insane traffic and crowds, it wasn't a home run.  But I picked up some very nice pieces.

We walked around for quite a while until something stood out to me.  But when it did, it did in a big way.  I've been on a bit of a print/litho kick lately, if you've been reading over the last few months.  This piece features Maz, Stargell, and Clemente on the left, and the Pirates 1994 schedule on the right.  It's a little smaller than your average movie poster, so it would take up a good chunk of wall space.  I'm not sure that I want to dedicate that much room to an overblown pocket schedule that's 2 decades outdated.  I may cut/fold it down to just display the art portion, though that Iron City ad in the lower right corner may give me just cause to show off the whole thing.  And besides, maybe someday my future children and their friends can learn of a wonderful world before freaking interleague games every. single. day.  But I digress...
  The seller initially asked $10 on the piece.  Within a matter of seconds of me not responding to his initial offer, he had made 3 separate counteroffers, landing at $5.  I managed to bundle in a couple of 70's Pirate scorecards he had, getting the trio for $10

It was a program kind of day apparently.  A couple rows over I came across a regular dealer who usually has Pittsburgh sports memorabilia.  He had a stack of pennants, and some odds and ends photos, programs, and the like.  I picked up a 1962 Pirates yearbook with some slight damage for $10, and got him down to $5 on an awesome looking 2006 ASG pennant.

I've amassed a pretty nice pennant collection over the last year or so courtesy of local flea markets.  But the fragile tips and general flimsiness of them has me worried.  Pennant toploaders seem like a pretty pricey investment, but also seems like the only real option for longterm display/safety.  I'd hate to just ram a couple thumbtacks through them and stick them to the wall.

If anyone is more well versed in pennants than I, any tips on display/storage would be greatly appreciated.

What I had lacked in quantity, I easily made up for at the end of the day.  Kate was looking through a vendor with a few boxes of postcards (her first foray into collecting), and I wandered around a bit nearby.  I saw a dealer with some Penguins shirts in front of his table, where I snagged an awesome argyle print shirt with the 90's Pens logo complete with new tags for only $3.  Further back in his cove of tables he had some Pirate magazines - yearbooks, programs, some random stuff.

Nothing was priced, but he said they were $2 a piece.  At that price, I quickly grabbed up a half dozen or so that I was interested in.  The dealer came over and said I could take all the programs for $10.  Considering I already had more than $10 in my pile, I eagerly pulled out a ten while he boxed up the lot for me.

The vendor said that the collection came from an estate sale, and that the owner had worked for the Pirates in some office capacity.  Cool story, and I figured I could go through things in a bit more depth when we got home.

And boy was I pleased.  The box contained magazines, scorecards, and promotional materials from the mid 80's through 2001.  There was a business card attached to one - apparently this guy had been in the Pirates front office doing financial work for the team.  There were relatively common items - the On Deck Magazine, four media guides from the 90's, a couple 80's scorecards (seriously, can anything scream "We're in trouble this year!" more than Steve Kemp, Sixto Lezcano, and George Hendrick on your scorecard?).

But the real treasures for me were the oddball items - a couple Pirates' investor reports, magazines from the late 90's touting the future PNC Park, a merchandise catalogue (does anybody else remember those?) from the 1994 All-Star game, and what appears to be a back-area pass from the 1992 Stanley Cup finals.

 

I guess this only adds to my problem of having way too much stuff and no idea how/where to display it.  But if nothing else there is some awesomely dated reading material in here.  I think I've been slowly building an unofficial Pittsburgh sports archive.  Even in this day and age of everything being digitalized and nothing ever really leaving the internet, it seems kind of cool to preserve some of these things that probably rarely got a second glance after they were published.

Less Binder, More Wall

I realize I have been posting a lot more memorabilia than cards in recent months.  For better or worse, my card pickups have been slowing down significantly.  There just aren't that many Bucco cards out there that a) I really, really want and b) are at a price I'm willing to pay.  

At current prices I won't touch most Cutch cards, and even secondary players like Marte or Alvarez go for more than I'm willing to spend.  

In the mean time, I've been able to pick up some awesome future wall decorations.  I'm sure the card bug will bite me soon (the National should be a good cure), but for less than a Cutch auto that would just go straight to a binder or box, I can pick up awesome pieces that I'll be able to see and enjoy day in and day out.

This bad boy came from my pickups at the Robert Morris show.  I don't know that I'm in love with the Fleer World Series cards on the sides, but otherwise this pieces is great.  If you look closely at the artwork you'll notice...not much worth capturing from the mid-late 90's.  Jason Kendall in the bottom right corner and Ricardo Rincon and Francisco Cordova commemorating their no-hitter.  Otherwise, lots of bumblebee uniforms.  

I Need More Wall Space

After another month long disappearance, I'm back to blog land.  And this time finally with a renewed interest in collecting and (hopefully) cards.  Flea market season seems to have brought out the best in me.  But I do feel pretty crappy that I disappeared before I got to show off the best pickups from the big Robert Morris show, including my Pirate card additions and two awesome framed pieces.

In the time since I went away, I have found some really amazing pieces at flea markets.  As my card buying as tapered off, my appreciation for other Pirates memorabilia has picked up steam.  The down side?  Wall space.  Namely my lack of it.  Most of the wall space in our current apartment is already accounted for.  We're looking to move later this year, possibly into our first house.  The plus?  Wall space and finally a man cave of my own.  The down side?  Makes putting new stuff up on these walls kind of tiresome when you just hope to take stuff down in a few months.

But boy will I have an awesome basement one of these days...

This was a pickup from the RMU show, and is probably tied for being my second favorite addition from the show with this piece.

It looks like the print came from the Pirates 100th anniversary in 1987, and aside from the somewhat questionable inclusion of Tony Pena captures all the Pirates greats to that point.  I might take slight issue with the size of Clemente in comparison to Pena, Stargell, and Maz.  But otherwise the colors on this print really stand out, and the blue/red and black/gold color schemes create some interesting contrast.

I'm a history junkie, and I think there's something that really attracts me to pieces that acknowledge a lengthy span of history.  One of the things I love about the Bucs is that their history largely parallels the rise of the city of Pittsburgh.  To fit all those eras and players into one space is just really interesting to me.

Now I just need to find somewhere to hang it...

Making Up for Lost Time

Growing up there weren't many times when I wasn't playing with some kind of action figure.  As an only child, there was a lot of time to keep myself occupied, not that I really minded.  A good chunk of my time was tied up in one of three things: LEGO's, my WWF wrestling figures, or Starting Lineups.  

I had a pretty intricate system, at least for a 7 or8 year old.  Teams were drafted with a lineup and 1-2 pitchers, depending on how many pitching figures I had.  The fielders never changed, since it was always tough to find figures in a fielding position.  When new figures would come into the collection, they would have to wait until enough figures were accumulated to field an expansion team.

 Games would take place in our basement, usually while my dad was watching sports at night or on the weekends.  The green carpet, a hideous remnant of the early 80's that is thankfully long gone, was the perfect Astroturf playing surface.  A line of those plastic ice cream helmets lined the outfield wall, with our couch posing as an makeshift Green (or more accurately, a hideous Fuchsia) Monster in Left.

Nine inning games could go on for hours, with scores into the hundreds.  After all hitting a little wadded up paper ball with an action figure bat is considerably easier than the real game.  Starting Lineup Randy Johnson was admittedly not throwing in the 90's.  Strikeouts were rare, and batters were only retired on a hit ball if they hit it directly at a fielder.

My Starting Lineup collection reads like a who's who of 90's stars.  Bagwell, Pudge, Will Clark, Clemens, Bonds.  But all those department store trips and weekend rides with my dad because we knew what day Toys R Us got their shipments never yielded a Pirate figure.  I don't remember exact configurations, but in my SLU heyday from about 1995-1998, I think lesser players were shortpacked, while stars were produced in higher quantities.  And needless to say, the mid 90's Pirates, when they even made it into a set, were in the lesser category.

I've been working on tracking down opened an unopened copies of all the Pirate SLU figures.  And while I have a few of the different Bonds, Bonilla, and Van Slyke figures from the early 90's, the mid 90's lesser names have been tough to track down.  I was just killing some time searching on ebay when I came across this lot - 6 figures: a Clemente/Stargell 2-pack from the late 80's, John Smiley, Orlando Merced (last photo), Jeff King, and Jay Bell in one of my favorite positions turning two.  I won the lot for a whopping $10 dlvd.  Less than $2/figure?  Yes please.

Maybe it seems silly, but there's nothing like recapturing my childhood.  The figures take me back to evenings on the carpet in front of the big screen tv.  During the HR Derby, always a sight to see in the muscle-bound 90's, my all stars would be hosting their own with tapemeasure shots to match.  I was on the carpet for the '96 and '97 All-Star games, and the '97 World Series - at least until my bed time.  My dad must have had saintly patience as this small human continued to jump up and down and run around the carpet in front of the screen while chasing little paper balls.  But me?  I'm half tempted to go get my SLU's out of their big popcorn tin, set up the field, and let these Buccos finally have a chance to play.  

The Big Show Pickups, Part II

The Pirates 1925 World Series poster I posted earlier today was a huge pickup, and the only piece of pre-war memorabilia in my collection.  But it's a little lacking in the color department.  Fortunately for my future wall space, the remainder of my pickups make up for that.

I'll let the picture speak for itself.  This was one of three items I picked up that weren't professionally framed.  Details on the piece have been hard to come by.  Todd had no idea where he found his copy, and online searches have been fruitless.  But I assume the lithograph is some kind of all-time team.  The players featured span all 8 field positions, a manager, and 3 pitchers - lefty and righty starter and fireman Roy Face.

From left to right starting in the back row: Danny Murtaugh, Harvey Haddix, Roy Face, Vern Law, Honus Waner, Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente  Front row: Ralph Kiner, Manny Sanguillen, Paul Waner?, Pie Traynor?, Bill Mazeroski

The colors immediately caught my eye, and I love the span of history covered on the piece.  The most recent player is Pops, who retired in 1982, so I imagine the piece is from the mid-late 80's.  I assume anything more recent would have replaced Sanguillen with Jason Kendall, or included Barry Bonds. 

The lithograph reminds me of a mural located under a bridge in downtown Pittsburgh.  The mural was right along my route that I walked almost daily during my first year of college when I would spend my down time reading and writing at the Point where the three rivers converge, so it brings back some nice memories for me.

At first glance I thought the background on the lithograph was some kind of desert scene.  But upon a closer look I realized it's actually the stands and backdrop of Forbes Field with Pitt's Cathedral of Learning towering near the center.

Better yet the litho cost about as much as a blaster.  I'd love to get it into a frame immediately, but I'll probably hold off until I can get it professionally framed and matted.  But I can guarantee this will be a centerpiece of my Pirates display for a long time to come.

Card Show Pickups, Pirate Style

 I always love the excitement and intrigue of a card show.  You never know what you'll find. 

But you can usually go in with a pretty good idea.  Some shows are notoriously vintage heavy.  Other times you can safely assume a couple regular dealers will be there with their standard fare.

The results can be wonderful, or predictably mediocre depending on the show.  My show hauls have pretty consistently been low end-heavy.  I rarely shell out the big bucks for higher end cards.  Or even mid end cards.  But when I do, I usually prefer the bargain hunting avenues of ebay or COMC, simply because there is a far wider selection than what you'll find at even the largest show.

But sometimes...life is full of surprises.

This card show recap is going in reverse.  I've been posting some of my non-Pirate dimebox finds over the past few days.  Now it's time for the good stuff.  After the dimebox dig was all said and done, I took a quick look through the dealer's Pittsburgh cards.  It's usually just a matter of going through the motions - $5 for Tony Sanchez autos that I've been buying at less than $2.  Ten dollars for a Marc-Andre Fleury gu card.  You know the drill - local inflation. 

But when I flipped past the Buc Blasters card above, it was at least worth a price check.  $5.  Yes please.  It's not a super high end card by any means, but the card was coming home with me.  I could have grabbed a copy off ebay, sure.  And it's not in the greatest shape.  But this is one card that was still left on a relatively small vintage needs list.  And this guy never, ever shows up in the discount vintage boxes from what I've seen.  So there you have my biggest purchase of the day.

But the best?

 I had always worked under the assumption that Goose Gossage's lone year in Pittsburgh was never immortalized on cardboard.  Search after search yielded nothing.  No database listings of a Pirate card.

So I was pretty floored when I flipped across this in the dime box.  Goose?  In black and gold.

Yep.

The card does list him as a Yankee on the back, which would account for it never showing up in searches.  But that is very much a pillbox cap on the front of the card.  Obviously it's not in the greatest shape, so hopefully an upgrade will be in the cards down the road.

 Since I started buying off of COMC in 2010 or so, I don't spend much time looking through game used and autos at shows.  Low end cards can usually be had for a dollar and chance, which beats the price at just about any show.

 Note I said just about any.  All three of these autos were had for a mere $1 each.  I would have paid at least double that for the Hanrahan and Morgan, and I had been waiting for a price drop on the Lincoln Chromes listed on COMC for a while now.  It's tough to beat $1 autos.

 And just to round out the action a bit, I was able to bring home some Pirate inserts that I still needed a well.  The Stargell/Bench card is a cool piece capturing the 70's rivalry.  And the Clemente Chasing History mini was a nice pickup at $.50.  They probably aren't all that uncommon, but the Mini cards don't seem to make it into circulation that much.

 I had been anxiously chasing Tony Sanchez cards when EEE went live in 2009.  And by chasing, I mean I never actually caught any.  Prices were too high for my liking.  But as a 26 year old 3rd catcher?  Yep.  Prices are just where I like em.  Hopefully Tony will see at least a few years as a solid ML regular.

And closing on the "I didn't expect to find this card in a dime box" find: Justin Morneau's lone Pirate card.  Sadly the late season acquisitions of Marlon Byrd, John Buck, and Morneau slipped past Topps in Update.  And 2014 series 1.  But Panini had me covered at least on the Morneau.  The product was fairly recent and a higher end offering.  Plus very easy to scratch up.  So I was thrilled to find a copy in the dime box in perfect shape.  Another nice little memento of the Pirates postseason run.

New Address, New Mail

Now that the moving is done, apartment is unpacked, and wedding is just around the corner, there's only one thing to do: open mail.  I still have a few stragglers waiting for me at my parents' house, but my most recent purchases are finally coming directly to me. 

And while my buying has been scaled back quite a bit since leaving Ohio, I managed to fit in a few low cost, high awesome pickups.


My only ebay win in

quite a while, I had been after this one for quite some time.

I won the card for a mere $1.50 shipped.  I knew I'd be getting the PWE treatment, which I don't mind.  But it can be hell on gu cards.  Lucking, this beauty showed up in a toploader in pristine condition.  The sorting machine gods smiled favorably upon me. 

I've fallen dreadfully behind on new releases.  But while checking out some of my favorite online opium dens, I found a brand-spanking new Wandy Rodriguez auto from Prizm for a mere $3.  It's his first (and quite possibly only) auto as a Pirate (albeit with airbrushed logos), so I had to snag it.  And while I'm at it, why not add some cards from 2013 Panini Cooperstown to get me up to the free shipping threshold.

I found it amusing that while it seems pretty clear Wandy is in the Bucs Sunday '71 throwbacks, they swapped out the gold hat for an airbrushed black version. 

But the real gems were the Cooperstown cards.  Goose Gossage spent one fantastic season with the Bucs, but was spurned in his one shot to make it on black and gold cardboard.  Though I have his auto in a Yankees uni, it's just not good enough for me.

So I was downright thrilled that he made it onto a card (well, sort of) as a Buc (well, sort of)

These disc cards are awesome (though they bring back some bad 90's memories of Pogs), and the player selection is great.  You'll be seeing a few more of these in the days to come.

One of the real gems of last year's Cooperstown release were the Crystal cards.

Though they certainly have some 90's feel to them, they're perhaps one of the few new additions to the hobby that are relatively new.  Well, not that I'd call foil cards new.  But the pattern is part foil, part Atomic refractor, and all around awesome.  The Crystal Reds look great this year.

But the Blues appear much darker this year than last, and I'm not crazy about the look.  Though I am excited to see a Pirate card of HoF'er Burleigh Grimes.

Unfortunately the newest Crystal addition this year, Green, really fell short of expectations.  Again the coloring on the cards is very dark, and I had trouble telling the difference between the blue and green coming out of the bubble mailer.

With that said, these additions blow 90% of the Topps cards I added this year out of the water.  Panini did a very nice job designing the cards and selecting photos that still looked great without logos.  Perhaps they should pass along some design tips to the design teams for their MLBPA releases.

I (Don't) Love the 80's

You know all the great things I've said about 90's cards?  Well I feel the complete opposite about the preceding decade.  The 80's were a cardboard wasteland for the Bucs, capped off by the Pittsburgh Drug Trials and the Pirate Parrot dealing coke out of the dugout tunnels.

Speaking of which, we also had Lee Tunnel, adding insult to injury.

Still, there were some gems that came from the decade.  And they've been sadly under-represented on here to this point.

But this '83 Fleer card of Pops really captures the essence of the guy that was the heart of the team throughout the post-Clemente 70's.  And after he left, it's not really all that surprising that the entire franchise fell apart.

I love this photo - vintage warmup gear that looks more like it's straight off the department store rack than today's super duper high end on-field gear.  Add in the upper deck of Three Rivers, where Stargell dumped many a ball, and it only adds to the card.  For a set that didn't offer much aesthetically, this card is a real gem.