Picked up a bunch of magic cards at a yard sale of mtg cards at a yard sale for $5 - did pretty good with them with a couple of Karakas cards and a few other decent priced cards and then came across this black lotus. It's in terrible condition (not sure if it would even be worth anything if it is real) and I never played much magic so I have no idea if it's real or fake . Hopefully someone here might be able to help.
it is in very bad conditions but it still is a black lotus right?
can we have 600 dpi scans? and front, back and if possible if you can take a picture of the border it will help us saying if it is a rebacked card
Definitely need scans. Can't be sure from this, but it looks like the text might have printing dots in it. If the rules text in the textbox is not solid black, it's fake. Coloration looks a bit off as well, but without scans, it's not entirely conclusive.
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Picked up a bunch of magic cards at a yard sale of mtg cards at a yard sale for $5 - did pretty good with them with a couple of Karakas cards and a few other decent priced cards and then came across this black lotus. It's in terrible condition (not sure if it would even be worth anything if it is real) and I never played much magic so I have no idea if it's real or fake . Hopefully someone here might be able to help.
the back seems to have solid black borders so the back is original
BUT
the front of the card has horizontal stripes, even on the black border (seems unusual to me) i think someone printed the front of the black lotus and rebacked a card
So, if I hold the card at eye level and tilt it toward the light I can see what I could only try to describe as a 'shiny effect' there are many - probably hundreds of these shiny-ish vertical lines running the whole length of the card and also - hard to explain again the insides of the black borders also have this shiny effect - not the whole border just the inside - again hard to explain without somehow taking a pic. I assume these things point to fake.
Used to be the only way to tell if a card was real was by ripping it in half and looking for the blue layer in the middle. Never saw the logic in that "security feature"...
Nice find. With the pic I was 75 % sure it was a fake, as the colors were really off, but it seems that it was due to the camera and lightning, as the scan looks much better.
As other have told you the scan you posted is not large enough to let us tell you anything concrete. I would need a 600 dpi scan in some hosting service which does not limit the image size. a 600 dpi scan is about 12-20 MB in size, so something like Dropbox will work, but Salvations or some other forum will not.
If the card is real, it will be worth 300-1.5 k$, depending how badly it's bent. But I would need to be able to zoom in enough to see how the printing dots are printed on the card, or have the card in hand to tell anything about authenticity. From the small image most glaring flaws are missing. Beveled edges look crisp and text looks very well defined.
You can yourself do some tests, which help. Firts take a white bordered card and put the Lotus on top of it. If white shows, the card is smaller than a real card (usually fake), then put the card on top of the Lotus and is black shows, the Lotus is larger than a real card (surprising number of early fakes were slightly too small, especially at the corners...). Secondly take a bright light and try to find a undamaged part of the card. Shine the light through the card. Some light should come through and the glue holding the two halves togehter should be visible as 'marbling'. Compare to a different real card to see if it's normal. Rebacks often have glue in darker gluts or otherwise unevenly distributed. Rebacks alos let through either more or less light, depending how much the cards have been sanded.
As for the third step, take a magnifying glass is you have one and look at the 0-symbol on the casting cost. It should have very different dot pattern from the other areas outside the symbol-circle. If all those are ok, you can start hoping.
Nirvana is also way off. There are several ways to see if the card is real without ripping it in half. Most include measuring the edges and letter placement, dot patterns on different parts of the card and shining a bright light through the card (damaged cards are not ideal for this, as the creases and other damage let more light through). WotC used to authenticate cards at PT's and large game shows in the late 90's and were great at identifying some really strange items, like non-factory cut cards (which are again a thing these days.), rebacks and dark beta cards.
Or, you can left click, and drag on the image you see when you first click the link, and put the image in a new tab - it's fairly bigish, but more importantly, just the image - none of the tinypic crud. From there, you can further zoom in with ctrl + mouse wheel.
The *back* looks good, the front looks weird... is it just me, the scan, or do I see some odd scanline like stuff on it> 0_o
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http://i64.tinypic.com/28mhhy.jpg
can we have 600 dpi scans? and front, back and if possible if you can take a picture of the border it will help us saying if it is a rebacked card
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
These may help a little more - theyre supposedly 600 dpi. I have no idea what to look for but hopefully they help.
thanks!
http://i68.tinypic.com/2evybk6.jpg
http://i66.tinypic.com/r8xvsj.jpg
If it is genuine, it's still worth a lot of money
the back seems to have solid black borders so the back is original
BUT
the front of the card has horizontal stripes, even on the black border (seems unusual to me) i think someone printed the front of the black lotus and rebacked a card
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
what other cards were in that sale? if you scan them too we can see if there are other fakes and confirm this aswell
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
thanks to DNC of Heroes of the Plane Studios for the coolest sig
vintage-WBdark timesBW
legacy-BGRJund-51/60BGR
RBBob Sligh 48/60BR
GRone land belcherRG
URBTES-54/60URB
Fun deck-BBBBKobolds stormBBBB
As other have told you the scan you posted is not large enough to let us tell you anything concrete. I would need a 600 dpi scan in some hosting service which does not limit the image size. a 600 dpi scan is about 12-20 MB in size, so something like Dropbox will work, but Salvations or some other forum will not.
If the card is real, it will be worth 300-1.5 k$, depending how badly it's bent. But I would need to be able to zoom in enough to see how the printing dots are printed on the card, or have the card in hand to tell anything about authenticity. From the small image most glaring flaws are missing. Beveled edges look crisp and text looks very well defined.
You can yourself do some tests, which help. Firts take a white bordered card and put the Lotus on top of it. If white shows, the card is smaller than a real card (usually fake), then put the card on top of the Lotus and is black shows, the Lotus is larger than a real card (surprising number of early fakes were slightly too small, especially at the corners...). Secondly take a bright light and try to find a undamaged part of the card. Shine the light through the card. Some light should come through and the glue holding the two halves togehter should be visible as 'marbling'. Compare to a different real card to see if it's normal. Rebacks often have glue in darker gluts or otherwise unevenly distributed. Rebacks alos let through either more or less light, depending how much the cards have been sanded.
As for the third step, take a magnifying glass is you have one and look at the 0-symbol on the casting cost. It should have very different dot pattern from the other areas outside the symbol-circle. If all those are ok, you can start hoping.
Nirvana is also way off. There are several ways to see if the card is real without ripping it in half. Most include measuring the edges and letter placement, dot patterns on different parts of the card and shining a bright light through the card (damaged cards are not ideal for this, as the creases and other damage let more light through). WotC used to authenticate cards at PT's and large game shows in the late 90's and were great at identifying some really strange items, like non-factory cut cards (which are again a thing these days.), rebacks and dark beta cards.
Nice find anyway.
Set to default
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Or, you can left click, and drag on the image you see when you first click the link, and put the image in a new tab - it's fairly bigish, but more importantly, just the image - none of the tinypic crud. From there, you can further zoom in with ctrl + mouse wheel.
The *back* looks good, the front looks weird... is it just me, the scan, or do I see some odd scanline like stuff on it> 0_o