Card doctoring...

[drcy]

Originally Posted by rainier2004

Not to mention someone that knows what they are doing can recreate stock from 1909...its amazing. How do you think maps/artifacts from 200-500 years ago are restored? This is standard in other collections, juts not ours...scary shit.

Such restoration can be identified.

[rainier2004]

Originally Posted by drcy

Such restoration can be identified.

No it cant...tell me how? Blacklight, nope. Loupe, nope. Fiber weaves, nope. Printing, yes but a lot of borders don't have printing. Tell me how...same stock as used a hundred years ago. As long as the color is correct you could never tell.

[drcy]

There are numerous ways it is identified. In part because the two parts don't seemly fuse together and, even if original paper stock is used, foreign substances have to be used to affix or integrate it to the card. Cut a single sheet of raw paper or card stock, cut it in half and try and put it back together using any method you can think of.

[rainier2004]

Originally Posted by drcy

There are numerous ways it is identified. In part because the two parts don't seemly fuse together and, even if original paper stock is used, foreign substances have to be used to affix or integrate it to the card. Cut a single sheet of raw paper or card stock, cut it in half and try and put it back together using any method you can think of.

That's not necessarily true...and even if they do they would need to be identified. Fun chat, but I think you are wrong...

[drcy]

I will quit this friendly debate, but I'm not wrong. There are net54 lawyers, accountants and physicians whose opinions I rightfully defer to, but this is my field.

[steve B]

The discussion about what can be identified and who can identify it is an interesting one.

My take on it is that there are some very skilled people on both sides of repairs.
Doing the repair isn't hard, doing it so it's hard to detect is. And as far as I know, most real conservators don't try to make a repair undetectable, just undetectable to most people giving the item a casual look. They also do some important stuff like deacidifying the paper, stabilizing fragile pieces and doing acceptable and reversible stuff to ensure the item has a good chance of lasting a lot longer. In some hobbies, like old posters, that's entirely acceptable, in others like ours, it's not generally accepted.

Detecting some alterations isn't easy. At the International stamp expo in 2006, they had thousands of square feet of displays of all sorts of amazing stuff. The one I spent the most time with was an assortment of altered stamps displayed by the Philatelic foundation (One of the stamp equivalents of PSA/SGC but in many ways better than either)
I couldn't spot the alterations on nearly everything they displayed. Which was a bit scary.
They showed pretty much every sort of "improvement" that can be done. Tears fixed so they were nearly invisible, missing corners, sides etc rebuilt and added, watermarks and other features of the paper itself added..
I thought I was pretty good until I spent an hour looking at that display. I've learned a lot since, but would still miss a decent portion of what I saw.

That's why a marginally trained person giving a card a minute or so of inspection really just isn't enough.

As far as the paper being possible to duplicate, I'll say that getting close is possible getting close enough even using original material will still be detectable. Might it be "possible" to duplicate it exactly? Yes, but it's very unlikely someone will do it any time soon. The detailed technical specs aren't even known in a general sense, and those more likely than not vary between sets and possibly even between print runs. And that's just the paper.

[Runscott]

It is very interesting to see Steven tell David he is wrong. David, of course, is right.

Also would like to note that I agreed with Glyn on something - it might be the first or second time ever, so it's worth mentioning.

Peter - some of the missed alterations are unforgivable while I'm sure some are accidental. Others exist because, while the technology to detect the alteration exists, it is too expensive to be practical;i.e-we couldn't afford to pay the TPA to do such checks. Numerous examples have been discussed here in the past, such as dryness of the item (water content). There are also some very nifty alterations that can currently be done to 19th century items without detection - I wrote an unpublished paper about these and ran it by some of the 19th century cardboard collectors here and they were almost unanimous in agreement that I should keep it unpublished. The tests were super-fun to run and I'm sure that if I have thought of them, others with financial incentive have not only thought about them, but have implemented them to the tune of many thousands of dollars. (don't think too much about it).

[rainier2004]

Alright, it sounds like David knows much more than myself but I do not think TPGs are using the equipment that he is referring to...maybe I'm wrong, but I've never seen anyone use more than a 80x loupe, black light and some computer technology. So in that regard, with those tools, I will stand by my statement that good restorers can make it undetectable to TPGs...maybe not museum folk, but TPGs simply aren't museum folk.

[drcy]

Originally Posted by rainier2004

Alright, it sounds like David knows much more than myself but I do not think TPGs are using the equipment that he is referring to...maybe I'm wrong, but I've never seen anyone use more than a 80x loupe, black light and some computer technology. So in that regard, with those tools, I will stand by my statement that good restorers can make it undetectable to TPGs...maybe not museum folk, but TPGs simply aren't museum folk.

I agree, and that's kind of what I've said throughout the thread. However, black light, opacity (see through effect) and gloss examination are simple but effective methods for identifying alterations such as built up corners. Simple methods combined be more powerful that one advanced test.