'Altered' vs 'Authentic' - confused

[drcy]

I agree that a condition grade of 'Authentic' is ambiguous.

I should add that there are scarce cases where there is so much restoration that there are questions about 'How authentic is it?" I'm not talking about trimming our touching up, but cases where, say, 40 percent of the item has been restored with foreign materials. And, of course, there are alteration of otherwise genuine items that are designed to change the identity and thus are forgeries (rare variations, T206 Magie, etc). Some genuine but badly broken ancient Indian Artifacts, such as stone arrowheads or knives, are rechipped into whole pieces, and many collectors in that area would consider these borderline forgeries-- or at least, not entirely authentic. Genuine ancient American Indian artifacts are commonly 'cleaned up,' so that's a collecting area were looking for restoration is common.