Four Things People Call Fake
Only one of them is a crime, and confusing them leads to both bad purchases and unfair accusations.
Counterfeit
An unauthorised copy made to pass as the original. Illegal, worthless, and the only category on this page where the intent is always dishonest.
Reprint
An officially produced later edition of an older card. Frequently marked as a reprint, printed on modern stock, and sold openly. A real product with a real place in the hobby.
Custom or tribute card
Made by an artist or fan, never issued by a manufacturer. Perfectly legal to create and to sell as what it is. Problems begin only when it is listed as something else.
Altered card
A genuine card that has been trimmed, recoloured, pressed or otherwise improved to gain a grade. The card is real; its condition is a lie. Harder to detect than a counterfeit.
A reprint sold as a reprint is fine. The same card resold three owners later, with the word omitted from the title, has become a deception without anyone printing anything illegal. Always ask explicitly, and always ask for the back.
What You Actually Need
Very little, and most of it you already own.
Keep a few commons from every set you buy into. They cost almost nothing and they are your control sample — comparing two cards side by side is far easier than judging one in isolation.
Ten Checks, in Order
Ordered so the fastest and most decisive come first. Most fakes fail before check six.
- Compare against a genuine card
Same set, any player. Look at colour, gloss, border width, font weight, logo placement. Differences that are invisible alone are obvious side by side.
If you only do one thing on this list, do this one. - Check the print pattern under magnification
Genuine offset printing produces a regular rosette pattern of dots. Counterfeits printed on modern equipment show a different, often blurrier or more uniform pattern — or lines rather than rosettes.
The most reliable single indicator, and the hardest thing for a counterfeiter to reproduce. - Look for dots where there should be solid ink
Older cards have areas of solid screened colour containing no dots at all. A copy reproduces everything as dots, including those areas.
- Read the text at magnification
Genuine text is crisp with clean edges. Copied text looks fuzzy, pixelated or slightly thickened, because it has been through a scan and a reprint.
- Measure it
Standard modern cards are 2.5 by 3.5 inches. Anything short on one dimension has probably been trimmed; anything oversized may be a copy printed to the wrong scale.
- Feel the stock, then hold it to a light
Thickness, stiffness and surface texture are hard to fake. Many counterfeits use thinner stock and let noticeably more light through than a genuine card of the same era.
Compare against your control card rather than against an idea of what is normal — stock varies genuinely between years. - Rake a light across the surface
At a low angle you see gloss consistency, texture and any coating that stops where it should not. Also how a signature sits on the surface.
- Examine the edges
Cut quality, layering visible in cross-section, and whether all four edges have aged the same way. One suspiciously clean edge on an otherwise worn card is the classic sign of a trim.
- Check the back as carefully as the front
Copyright line, card number, licensing marks, statistics, back colour and registration. Counterfeiters concentrate on the front because that is what sells.
- Question the wear
Artificial ageing is common: rounded corners, staining, creasing, marks imitating album paste. Genuine wear is uneven and follows use. Manufactured wear tends to look evenly distributed.
Modern paper contains optical brighteners that fluoresce, so a pre-war card that glows is a warning sign. But it is not proof in either direction: card stock varies by era and by manufacturer, and sophisticated counterfeiters now account for it. Treat a blacklight as one input among several, never as a verdict.
Never test destructively. No bending, no scratching, no solvents, no soaking. If a card turns out to be genuine, you have just damaged it — and if it is fake, you have destroyed your own evidence.
Vintage and Modern Are Different Problems
The same checks apply, but what fails differs completely.
Vintage — watch for
- Print pattern wrong for the era
- Stock too thin, too white or too flexible
- Artificial ageing and manufactured wear
- Trimming to improve centring or corners
- Fluorescence on cards that predate optical brighteners
Modern — watch for
- Foil and refractive finishes that look flat or wrong
- Serial numbers added, altered or in the wrong typeface
- Autographs added to genuine unsigned cards
- Relic windows opened and swatches swapped
- Counterfeit slabs around perfectly genuine common cards
Copying a refractor convincingly is difficult. Adding a fake signature to a real card, or sealing a real card in a fake slab with a high grade, is much easier — and considerably more profitable. On modern cards, examine the claim before you examine the cardboard.
Autographs and Slabs
Two areas where verification is genuinely available, and where most people skip the step that would have protected them.
- Verify the certification number
Every graded card carries a number searchable on the grading company’s own website. Look it up before buying, and confirm the player, set, year and grade returned all match the slab in front of you.
Label-swap scams put a genuine cert number on a slab containing something else. Checking the number alone is not enough — check that it describes this card. - Inspect the slab itself
Font quality, label printing, case seams, hologram or security features. Compare against a slab you know to be genuine from the same company and generation.
- Prefer manufacturer-certified autographs
A signature witnessed and certified by the card manufacturer, printed as part of the product, is far safer than a loose signature accompanied by a certificate.
- Treat a certificate of authenticity as nearly worthless
Anyone can print one. A COA is only as good as the organisation behind it, and most are behind nothing at all.
- For anything valuable, buy it already authenticated
Paying more for a card in a slab from a recognised company is usually cheaper than discovering later that a raw card was not what it claimed.
Buying So It Does Not Happen
Prevention is almost entirely a matter of habit, and costs nothing.
- No back image, no purchase — the single most effective rule in this guide
- Photographs of the actual card, not a stock image or a database scan
- Ask directly: is this original, a reprint, or a custom? An honest seller answers plainly
- A price far below market is information, not luck
- Buy the most counterfeited cards already graded, or from a dealer you can go back to
- Buy in person where you can, at a shop or a show, with a loupe in your pocket
- Pay by a method with buyer protection, never by friends-and-family transfer
- Check seller history and how long the account has existed
If You Have a Doubt
Act carefully and in this order. Most doubts turn out to be nothing, and the ones that do not are resolved far better by evidence than by argument.
- Stop, and photograph everything
Front, back, all four corners, the edges, close-ups of anything that worries you, and the listing and messages before they disappear.
Evidence gathered calmly now is what settles a dispute later. - Do the comparison properly
Against a known genuine card and against high-resolution reference scans. Write down what specifically does not match, rather than a general feeling.
- Ask someone who knows
A shop owner, a specialist collector group, or people who collect that exact set. Post your photographs and ask a question — do not name the seller.
Public accusation before certainty is how honest sellers get damaged and how you end up in the wrong. - Contact the seller privately first
Neutral language: what you observed, and a request to return. A genuine seller who was also deceived will usually accept immediately.
- Open a dispute inside the window
Every platform has a deadline. Do not let it pass while you wait for a reply. Photographs and a clear factual description are what decide these.
- Get an independent opinion for anything valuable
Submit it for authentication. An assessment from a recognised company converts your word against theirs into a documented finding.
- Report it
To the platform, and to the group where you found it. Quietly and factually. It is what stops the next person buying the same card.
Passing it on, even honestly described, puts it back into circulation where the description will eventually be dropped. Mark it clearly and keep it as a reference card, or destroy it. A known counterfeit is genuinely useful as a comparison sample — and worth nothing otherwise.
Keeping Your Own Records Honest
The same discipline that applies to identification applies here. A collection is only as trustworthy as what it says about its own uncertainties.
- Record how authenticity was established: certification number, in-person inspection, or nothing
- Use a confidence level — confirmed, probable, provisional, unverified — and date it
- Keep the seller record and the photographs for anything significant
- If a card is a reprint or a custom, say so in the record, permanently
- Never quietly upgrade an assumption into a fact because time has passed
Common Questions
The four asked most often.
Is a graded card guaranteed genuine?
Are reprints worth anything?
Which cards get counterfeited most?
Can I get my money back?
Know What It Should Be First
Half of authentication is knowing exactly which card you are looking at. Base, insert, parallel or variation — then judge whether it is genuine.
How to identify a card