Fakes, Forgeries and the Future of Card Collecting

[steve B]

A few answers that may help... or not. Also a bit long.

1) Modern printing won't exactly duplicate old printing because it works differently. So no, there won't be impossible to ID fakes coming off home laser printers anytime soon if ever.

But....As with anything manufactured it's possible to duplicate it.
The problem comes in the math of making a profit from the effort.
Old paper is a bit more brittle from both age and because it was made differently. So you'd have to locate the right materials and get as close as possible to the process used. This isn't that tough. One currency counterfeiter trimmed bills to get the right paper.

Problem 2 is the exact printing method. Lithography? Typograph? Rotogravure? Those were all used on different sets. And each leaves a clue as to which process made the printed item. Now figure that the inks readily available aren't formulated the same way. Far fewer VOCs in modern inks. Some are vegetable rather than oil based. And some of the dyes will be very hard to come by. Once industry moves on from one chemical to a better or cheaper one the old one is mostly unavailable. And with lithography there's a difference between that done with a stone or a plate.

Lots of stuff to reengineer to make it undetectable. And making it even harder are some of the methods of study that are becoming acessible. Like spectography. There's a group of stamps that were known as "china clay paper" The paper looks grayish, and the stamps are rare enough to be worth about $1000 each. Then along comes a couple of people with access to scientific gear and the paper is proven to be just a substandard batch of the normal paper. And the whole lot get delisted from the catalog.

Then there's the cutting, and that takes some equipment and knowledge.
(I'm fairly sure a card could be trimmed in a way that it would pass grading.)

So yes, it's possible to make an exact duplicate of something. But you'd have to expend a huge ammount of time effort and money to do it. Plus you'd have to avoid the simple mistakes fakers usually make like getting a font wrong or producing an impossible T206 front/back combination.

2) Making fake PSA (Or SGC or Beckett or ..) holders would be much easier. But then you'd have the problem of having a card that didn't have a serial # in the PSA database. If the card is worth enough to cover the expense of having fake holders made or of simply buying them from the supplier or one of their shipping guys, eventually a buyer will check the number and find that it's not real. Same with the above mentioned guys that put in fake flips.

3) The very best way to avoid fakes is to handle and I mean physically without slabs or sleeves or anything a bunch of whatever you want to collect. I'd want to experience a few hundred 52 topps before I bought a Mantle. Or a bunch of T206s before buying a high grade HOFer. Rare cards are a bit tougher, but handling a good number of original old cards will give you a feel for what's real or not and just how old a printed item is.

That feel for an sort of intangible "oldness" of things is very important.
Years ago, probably in 1982 or 3 a dealer I knew handed me a fantastic 1951 Mantle. Perfect centering, good color and registration, sharp corners. They just handed it to me and asked my opinion. After the initial wow that's nice, an unease set in pretty quickly. Which led to me saying I couldn't put my finger on it, but It was a very nice fake. Then I got the rest of the story. They'd bought it through the mail and also thought it was fake. so they'd shown it around to a number of dealers and collectors and everyone had the exact same reaction. The suspicions were considered confirmed when they were asked about buying a couple more 51 Mantles, both from the same person. Both also perfect. I think it was destroyed, or they still have it. Today it would be a very dangerous card if it was in a slab.

But don't worry too much, start with a few G-vg raw commons and work into things slowly. You may find that also helps appreciate the really special cards even more.

Steve B