(possibly off-topic): Reconstruction

[dave n ant]

I was at a card shop tonight, and found a black-bordered
Reconstruction (blue sorcery, with no expansion symbol). The owner
didn't know offhand what set it was from, nor did I. Gatherer shows a
picture of the Antiquities version as being black-bordered and
without an expansion symbol... but I have several Antiquities cards
that do have the anvil thingy. Was there some reprint that just
didn't show the symbol? Chronicles was white-bordered, so that's not
it. Gatherer doesn't show it as being printed in any sets but Revised
(where it was white-bordered) and Antiquities (apparently, without
the Antiquities symbol on it)... Is that some mistake? It's the same
art on both versions, so it's not like there were 4 different
pictures and only one had the symbol on it. Could someone please
explain this to me? Hopefully, it's not something like "Well, Magic
is all about breaking the rules, this is just one more card where
Wizards broke their own rule".

(hmmm... did that work? is this now a rules question?)

thanks for patience... -dna

[Daniel W. Johnson]

Post by dave n ant
I was at a card shop tonight, and found a black-bordered
Reconstruction (blue sorcery, with no expansion symbol). The owner
didn't know offhand what set it was from, nor did I. Gatherer shows a
picture of the Antiquities version as being black-bordered and
without an expansion symbol... but I have several Antiquities cards
that do have the anvil thingy.

I think Reconstruction was the only Antiquities card with that
particular misprint.

[Zoe Stephenson]

Post by dave n ant
I was at a card shop tonight, and found a black-bordered
Reconstruction (blue sorcery, with no expansion symbol). The owner
didn't know offhand what set it was from, nor did I. Gatherer shows a
picture of the Antiquities version as being black-bordered and
without an expansion symbol... but I have several Antiquities cards
that do have the anvil thingy. Was there some reprint that just
didn't show the symbol? Chronicles was white-bordered, so that's not
it. Gatherer doesn't show it as being printed in any sets but Revised
(where it was white-bordered) and Antiquities (apparently, without
the Antiquities symbol on it)... Is that some mistake? It's the same
art on both versions, so it's not like there were 4 different
pictures and only one had the symbol on it. Could someone please
explain this to me? Hopefully, it's not something like "Well, Magic
is all about breaking the rules, this is just one more card where
Wizards broke their own rule".

It's a documented mistake in the printing, the Antiquities Reconstruction
is missing its expansion symbol. For a huge list of printing errors, I
found this page:

http://members.tripod.com/~squt/error10.html

Post by dave n ant
(hmmm... did that work? is this now a rules question?)

They only intentionally break the printing rules in Un* sets, as far as
I know. Remember that all printings of a card work according to its
Oracle text, and if there's a conflict between the frame/picture and
the text on the card, it's the text that identifies the card.

[David DeLaney]

Post by dave n ant
I was at a card shop tonight, and found a black-bordered
Reconstruction (blue sorcery, with no expansion symbol). The owner
didn't know offhand what set it was from, nor did I. Gatherer shows a
picture of the Antiquities version as being black-bordered and
without an expansion symbol... but I have several Antiquities cards
that do have the anvil thingy. Was there some reprint that just
didn't show the symbol?

Nope. The Antiquities Reconstruction was missing its symbol. It wasn't
deliberate, it just happened that way. (So you can tease people who don't
know that fact about "Beta Reconstructions"...)

There was a card or two in Chronicles that had the wrong symbol printed on
it too, but those were white-bordered, not black-bordered (and, at the time,
pretty easy to tell, because everyone knew which sets the cards had been
reprinted from).

Dave

[dave n ant]

{snippage}

Post by David DeLaney
Nope. The Antiquities Reconstruction was missing its symbol. It
wasn't deliberate, it just happened that way. (So you can tease
people who don't know that fact about "Beta Reconstructions"...)
There was a card or two in Chronicles that had the wrong symbol
printed on it too, but those were white-bordered, not
black-bordered (and, at the time, pretty easy to tell, because
everyone knew which sets the cards had been reprinted from).
Dave

In fact, the owner had pretty much decided it was a beta card which
just happened to not be listed in Scrye. Fortunately, I escaped that
particular dilemma. thanks again, -dna