Counterfeit Magic Cards

[mistercakes]

Thanks for the confirmation guys :)

[morphilou]

parkerlewis==> for me your card is true
they are 2 printing process ==> usa and belgium for old card (not same paper)
to see the 4th alternat not black light
the imprim are do with 1 printing (very often Not to say all the time)
the true card with 4 printing (cyan magenta yellow) + BLACK for text


the full black of textbox remove 95% OF FAKE

sorry , i'm french and my english is very bad

[non-inflammable]

parkerlewis==> for me your card is true
they are 2 printing process ==> usa and belgium for old card (not same paper)
to see the 4th alternat not black light
the imprim are do with 1 printing (very often Not to say all the time)
the true card with 4 printing (cyan magenta yellow) + BLACK for text


the full black of textbox remove 95% OF FAKE

sorry , i'm french and my english is very bad

mon français est mauvais, d'accord?

#1 Parker, your card is real
#2 Over the years there were several printing locations: US and Belgium
#3 Alternate 4th edition cards do not fluoresce under black light, they are not worth a whole lot but cool
#4 ? The fake cards have 4 color fuzzy text
#5 real cards are printed using 4 color process (CMYK)
cyan = sky blue * magenta = bubble gum pink * yellow = yellow
these three colors can technically be "enough" but the black plate is needed to add punch and contrast to images.
the black textbox is a almost always a seperate process (black plate) and should look very crisp and clean.
#6 if the textbox looks "fuzzy" it's probably fake...

[Claymore]

Followup on #4, he's saying that the counterfeits are printed in a single run, or more that they print the whole image at once. As far as I know, real cards print the CYK in a dot matrix layer, and then the black layer on top of everything else. This is why the black layer is so crisp, it's not printed with dots at all.

[ParkerLewis]

Well... I live in Paris, my name is François, and I spend like almost 100€ monthly on cheese for what is basically only my personal consumption.

If you'd rather send me messages in french chances are it'll be fine.

[morphilou]

Followup on #4, he's saying that the counterfeits are printed in a single run, or more that they print the whole image at once. As far as I know, real cards print the CYK in a dot matrix layer, and then the black layer on top of everything else. This is why the black layer is so crisp, it's not printed with dots at all.

no , 3 layer , 1 by color

a "set" of 4 transparencies (blue / red / yellow / black) superimposed. It was this object which enabled the printer to create the original printing plates.
- a test print, derived from these transparencies, and done on a paper type photo paper.
Basically it is a test print allowing to visualize the final rendering.
the first test (alpha)- This first print test (alpha) was done at the time by Dave Howell (then WotC Production Manager) via a local printer in Seattle.
it is for 1 testprint but it is the same for the card

the black is full black , never pixelated

[dragonwisdom]

Just for information, today I just received two Phyrexian Dreadnoughts.

One of them is a fake.

- Color-wise, it's quite good, if very slightly red/oversaturated, but really slightly. Standing next to the other one (and another copy I already had for like 10 years and know it's 100% true), the difference is visible, but slim and not enough to make it a blatant fake., especially given natural print run variations. It was enough to tick me off though.

- The back, as always, is very important. It tended to confirm my suspicion. Impression feels slightly grainier than it should be, and slightly darker than the othr two copies at my disposal. But still I wasn't 100% sure.

- Loupe test (30x) : now that almost got me.
The text is extremely good. It was definitely printed on a separate layer. In any case, I just couldn't see any difference with the real card.
The expansion symbol is not crystal clear but that's also the case for the other two cards (not printed on a different layer at the time ?), so no way to distinguish here.
At that point I was almost sold. I checked rosettes patterns :
- on the front, without additional lightsource : very difficult to reach a conclusion. On some places it felt maybe a little different, on others really not so much (maybe I was starting to strain my eyes too...)
- on the back same, maybe *a bit* more noticeable, but I was almost ready to believe it was just a print run variation.

- Light test : as-is, pass. There just wasn't any difference between the 3 cards.

At this point I really was ready to let it pass. Luckily I was still feeling uneasy and went to grab my UV-light and took the cards in a dark room.





Glad I bought that UV-light. Results are even much more obvious to the naked eye (these are straight jpegs from my APS-C camera, only downsized. Playing with the raw surely would have allowed me to make it look even more obvious, as much as to the eye, but I figured it was enough as-is).

Additional info : being then 100% sure it was a fake, I was a bit unhappy with how inconclusive the loupe test felt on this card. So I re-did it but with an additional light source held extremely close to the cards so that the part I'd be magnifying would be really brightly lit. The test was much more conclusive and the fake one stood out much more easily. So, when doing a loupe test, don't hesitate to have the card(s) sitting on a desk to free up a hand and to hold an additional light source right on where you're inspecting.

Hope this post may be helpful in any way.

Wow that was nice!. Could you post the make and model of your blacklight.

Thanks

[walked]

I put together a quick video after seeing some misinformation about fakes on Reddit.



Hopefully it helps someone else!