Posted By:
DavidOkay, I’ve said this before, but I don’t think anyone ever listens. First you need a handheld microscope of at least 30X power (higher power is better, but 30X will do). They cost under $20 each and are commonly found on eBay. Using your new handheld microscope, examine the player picture on the front of the card. If the card has the printing pattern like shown below, it is not a modern fake.
The key quality is the hard/dark rim around the printing. This was caused by the physical pressure during the printing. Also notice the little crosses in some of the dark dots. These little crosses are created as photographic image was ‘filtered’ during the making of the printing plate in a different way than lithography.
If your newspaper/magazine card has this type of printing, the card is old and authentic. Naturally, there could be a case of an authentic blank backed card where someone added a new stamp on the back, but the overall card itself is genuine. Authentication is a bit more complicated this just looking at this single quality. But the essential point is that this type of printing, with its unique qualities under the microscope, is out of date and essentially impossible to duplicate in modern times on a fake or reprint.
Of note, the below picture was taken from a Baseball Magazine Premium, which explains the brown ink.
