I Love a Mystery

Back in May I posted this little Billy Pierce pin but I had no idea at the time of what it was. 

It looked to me to be just some sort of unofficial, unauthorized junk pin and I hadn't paid it much mind since I found it in a box of other junk pins on a dealer's table. 

But since there were a couple of Pierce pins on my want list I continued to run my eBay search for 'Pierce pin' and lo and behold one day this appeared:

I bid a few dollars and I won. So it turns out to have been a Comiskey Park giveaway from 1996. As the backing 'card' shows, the Pierce was one of four given away that season. I'm happy to find out it is a more or less 'legit' collectible. 

A closer look at the 'card' shows that this particular one may have originally held the Ted Lyons pin. The info given shows 'future' giveaway dates including the Pierce pin nite. The Pierce pin pictured on the 'card' is slightly different from the finished product. The 'ribbon' is set on an angle on the real pin and it includes Pierce's full name. The photo used on the pin had the background seen on the 'card' version cropped out. 

So nothing earth shattering here but to a player collector I think it's good to know a piece has some background other than just being a random junk box artifact. And here is a scan of the backer card without the pin attached. It has the weight and feel of thick paper, about the same as those manila binder section dividers.