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Posted By: davidcycleback

If it's a common home computer reprint, the card printing will be made up of multi color dot under high magnification. The originals ussed either red-only or blue-only ink. Computer printers don't have blue or red ink, and must combine other color inks to make pure red and pure blue. Don't look at just the writing or border, but all over the card. In fact, even modern professional lithography printers don't use blue and red ink anymore, and would also have to combine other colors. Even on a professional lithograph reprint by Topps or Upper Deck (if they made reprints of the issue), the image area of Ruth would likely have multi-color dots.

To see what this kind of multi-color dot pattern looks like, examine a modern card or color magazine picture.

If you really know what you doing, the originals were made with photoengraving, an old time printing methods which can be identified under high magnification. But the multi-color dots will suffice to identify the vast majority of reprints.

Also, even beginners can learn to use an inexpensive black light to identify many reprints of antique cards and other paper items, as the black light identifies much modern paper. A black light, which is simple to use, won't identify all reprints and fakes, but will identify many. You don't have to be a baseball card expert or printing historian to determine that the paper stock on that 1915 Cracker Jack Joe Jackson is modern, meaning the card is a fake.