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Posted By: Hankron

If one has never owned a Fatima, they are easy to authenticate in parson. As the they are real photo (actual photographs, as oppsed to a print like a Topps or Sporting News) there is no tiny dot pattern in the image, even under magnification. Also, I suspect most will have a silver/mirror effect. If you hold a Fatima at a nearing 180 degree angle to a light source (daylight, lamp, other) and carefeully change the angle back and forth, my guess is that a silver or mirror effect will appear in the dark parts of the image. Meaning, at a specific angle, the dark of a shadow or the border will suddenly turn to bright silver. This silvering is nearly unique to early gelatin-silver photographs, and is a quick and easy way to identify many early 1900s photographs. The absense of silvering does not mean the photograph is neccesarilly modern, but the appearence of silvering is a near sure sign that the photograph is old.