"The Dark" Carta Mundi Counterfeits?

[Bovinious]

I was reading through the SCG Pimp thread and Hi-Val mentioned something about an employee at Carta Mundi making "counterfeit" cards while The Dark was in print that are legit except for darker coloring and ripping blue, and are not legal for tourney play because WOTC didnt print them. Here is exactly what Hi-Val said on SCG:


During the printing of The Dark, a Carta Mundi employee, the story goes, printed up sheets of power to sell because they were worth a lot of money at that point. The employee was caught, but not before some of the cards were in circulation. I've seen one of the Lotuses and it's a much darker looking piece. It's a very weird instance of a legit card printed on legit paper at the legit place, but being illegal because it wasn't made by WOTC. They'll rip blue if you decide to check your Lotus for authenticity.

They're one of the more bizarre and rare misprints.

I ask because I think I have a Sinkhole like this, I had a set and one was noticeably darker then the other 3 and people thought it was fake, but it passed the bend test and the microwave test. Hi-Val said above the employee only printed Power cards, but I think its possible he could have printed others too.

Does ANYONE know anything else about this alleged print run and its possible value/rarity?

[C.P.]

Step 1: Rip the Sinkhole

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Profit!

Someone should:

Step 1:Shut this guy up.

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Profit!


Back to the topic, I used to own such sinkhole as well. A guy who got it off me was suspicious because of darker colour and had to do bend test. He did get it at the end of the day, but I also want to know if it really was counterfeit.

[DeathwingZERO]

What set was the Sinkhole from? There's a possibility you might have yourself a very stupidly rare Summer Magic release. A scan/pic of some kind would be appreciated, but if you want to look up info on SM releases, it's pretty easy to distinguish them.

[yawg07]

What set was the Sinkhole from? There's a possibility you might have yourself a very stupidly rare Summer Magic release. A scan/pic of some kind would be appreciated, but if you want to look up info on SM releases, it's pretty easy to distinguish them.

Except for the fact that Summer Magic wasn't Unlimited, it was Revised.
Sinkhole cannot be in Edgar. :wink:

[DeathwingZERO]

That's right, Sinkhole never made it to Revised. I completely forgot, the only copies I had of the card for years were Alpha and Beta's :p

Also, now that I think about it, around the time that guy was printing those fake Power, Sinkhole was damn cheap. So I'm highly doubting he printed that, even if he went as far as to go past the Power 9. The only way I think it'd have seen print was if he actually went over full sheets, which would be extremely hard seeing as Dark went into print WAY after the original Unlimited sheets were already taken care of.

[Bovinious]

The Sinkhole was Unlimited, just like the alleged fake print was. I dont have the other 3 def. real Sinkholes anymore but Ill post a pic of the suspicious one later.

[Adan]

Somehow the story sounds fishy to me since I believe that WotC and Carta Mundi are working together.

http://www.cartamundi.com/Content/com/products/collectables/1/index.html

I don't think the story is true... At least I don't believe Carta Mundi did such a thing.

[Wallace]

No this brings me back!!!

http://www.cartamundi.com/Media/collectables/references/XFiles.jpg

[Adan]

k, I have to correct my statement, I asked some of my friends who are like the biggest collector-nerds ever. They told me that there was indeed once a guy at Carta Mundi who did some...Overtime and printed some Mishra's Workshops and other cool stuff. They charged him, but some of the card still got circulated.
So it's possible.

[hi-val]

The weirdest thing is that though it's referred in collecting circles as "Dark Beta", the Lotus I saw was actually Unlimited with a white border. You can tell that the card is one of the Dark printrun because they're richer in color. Put next to a legit Lotus, you can easily tell the difference, though if by itself, it's harder.

This may or may not be related to other printing weirdnesses. For example, light and dark Arabian Nights and the two different print runs of Legends comes to mind as legit oddities.

[Bovinious]

The weirdest thing is that though it's referred in collecting circles as "Dark Beta", the Lotus I saw was actually Unlimited with a white border. You can tell that the card is one of the Dark printrun because they're richer in color. Put next to a legit Lotus, you can easily tell the difference, though if by itself, it's harder.

This may or may not be related to other printing weirdnesses. For example, light and dark Arabian Nights and the two different print runs of Legends comes to mind as legit oddities.

YEAH, this pretty much describes my Sinkhole, it very noticeably darker when compared to other Sinkholes...is there any possibility the guy printed Sinkholes as well, as in he printed full sheets for the primary purpose of getting power, or did he somehow only make sheets of power cards?

[Finn]

Some of my Sinkholes are darker than others. But I have some from Beta and others from Unlimited. And both types exhibit these shade differences. I would be surprised if there was anything fishy about your cards.

[Cavius The Great]

the microwave test

Now I know you're crazy...

[C.P.]

Now I know you're crazy...

What is Microwave Test, BTW?

[DeathwingZERO]

The microwave test is actually one of the easiest ways to determine the card being legit with minimal damage to it if done wrong.

All you do is put it in the microwave on like medium-high setting for roughly a few seconds. Anything not using the blue-glue that Wizards has their companies print with to seal the cards will heat up and either split the card or bubble in spots.

Another very good test is the wet swab. You just grab a Q-tip and wet it, then swab across the front of a card, preferably on the text and picture in a straight line. You immediately wipe up the moisture with a tissue or towel, and anything using a fake printing job will smear, since Wizards cards are all "laminated" by a small amount of a plastic/wax like coating, to keep them from getting damaged by water spills on the surfaces.

Also, I'm highly doubting the guy wasted time doing full print runs. If he was doing UL that means he still would have needed access to the printing layouts for the uncut sheets, or there were some on hand, which is pretty hard since Revised was already in circulation by then. I'd say he probably was just making sheets of cards that he knew were good or at the very least rares/U1's.

I know that Mishra's Factory, Power, Library, and Mana Drain have all been confirmed as counterfeits at one point or another. It wouldn't surprise me if others ended up on that list, but Sinkhole seems really unlikely.

[Bovinious]

Some of my Sinkholes are darker than others. But I have some from Beta and others from Unlimited. And both types exhibit these shade differences. I would be surprised if there was anything fishy about your cards.

Well i hope theres nothing fishy about it, I want to be able to play it legally if I ever need to.


Now I know you're crazy...

Dude im not crazy its a legit test ^^, just dont try it with foil cards unless you wanna see some fireworks :wink:

[DeathwingZERO]

Dude im not crazy its a legit test ^^, just dont try it with foil cards unless you wanna see some fireworks :wink:

I concur on both counts. On a non-foil of any printing it doesn't damage the card at all. But on foils, man is it pretty $D

[Shtriga]

what's this about blue ink when tearing the cards? I tore a few basic lands and they're white on the inside :S

[DeathwingZERO]

If you tear a card at a slight enough angle (not a clean rip but one that leaves like half of the card's back or front exposed) you'll see a blue strip of the glue they use to put the cards together. It's a special thing only Wizards does with it's cards, so you can track counterfeits pretty well. If you do too much of a clean rip you won't notice this, though.

[hi-val]

If you have a few cards that have color differences, like Sinkholes, they're probably not Dark Beta because the guy who printed them made exceptionally few ones.