Quote:
Originally Posted by irv
How, exactly, are cards authenticated?
I always wondered this? Do they just look at the card and compare to real known ones, do they do a test on the paper/cardboard like carbon dating or something similar?
Not looking for disclosed info that will help the counterfeiters in any way so don't reply if that is what you think it will do?
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I visited Beckett once and they had black lights, microscopes and literature on printing patterns, etc. Though I'm sure a lot of it is having graders experienced in the area. I'm sure there are specialists in the different areas of cards.
My often told story is a guy emailed me and said he'd been collecting Goudeys for 30 some years and had read an article about counterfeit Goudeys. He asked how he could know if any of his cards were counterfeits or reprints. I said if he'd been collecting them for thirty years, he'd be the first to know. The experienced eye is one of the most useful scientific tools.
The other thing I say is identifying a fake usually takes 5 percent of the time. The other 95% of the time is explaining to the card owner why it's a fake.