Just right of the bat, the swamp HAS to be fake, so if this isn't the right subforum this post should be moved.
So, why do I post this?
Well, I got hold of a basic swamp, which from the front looks like a regular alpha/beta swamp, has not the typical corners of a regular card, but fits the description of an Alpha card (I have never seen one to actually compare this) and has a regular backcover. The traces of wear seem to be normal for 24 years of existence. Print pattern appears to be normal. But the card is way too stiff! In fact, the card is as stiff as two cards being glued together, but it is too thin for that. It has two sheets of the blue paper in between though and seems to be glued together from two non-complete cards, i.e. one missing its front and the other missing its back. I tried to carefully split the cards and could do this in a small part, but stopped since it didn't reveal anything, just white surfaces of cardboard being held together by glue. Furthermore, the glue appears to be spread very evenly and not being done by an actual human hand.
Even more mysteriously, I bought the swamp at a fleemarket from someone who also sold other proxy cards, which I didn't buy. The proxies were really old and the seller told me, he stopped playing around 1998. The proxies fit that story, since they were only old cards (Power 9, Duals, Ali from Cairo and then some) and were only printed pictures glued to real cards, i.e. the Black Lotus proxy was glued to a card from the International Edition.
So, since I started playing in 2002, does any of the older players knows cards like my 'fake' swamp? And why did anyone forge a basic swamp twenty years ago? And in this quality? I'm pretty curious!
P.S.: I try to upload pictures later (which are totally unspectacular), but have currently no scanner and not enough light for a photo. Hopefully, I have time tomorrow.
Fake beta and sometimes alpha commons and basic lands were the usual practise materials when people tested rebacking. The description fits the usual rebacked card.
In 1998 a friend of mine decided that he wanted to test rebacking cards, after another friend had bought a rebacked dual land. He was pretty open about telling everybody he knew what he was doing and allowing people to examione the results, so they could in turn better spot fakes. In our part of the world we never got many fakes, and the few we got were all rebacks (or maybe nobody knew how to spot dark beta...).
The first few rebacks were pretty terrible, but the later ones became somewhat harder to spot without close examination. The corners were the easiest places to spot problems and while we agreed that with better tools he possibly could have made fakes with only minimal thickness difference, the corners would always be the problem and nowadays most people know to do a light test to expensive cards would make selling these not feasible.
I'm not telling any tips, but there are plenty of ways to increase the quality if you know your crafts. Luckily the CE and ICE cards are relatively scarce (and duals and P9 are pretty expensive too) these days and there's no real point in making beta fakes (and as alpha they won't pass muster.) With current printer technology printing proxies is also much easier.
I would guess that there are still some rebacked cards floating around, but as they are really easy to spot and most glues used 20 years back have started degrading and/or hardening, they should become less common all the time.
So, why do I post this?
Well, I got hold of a basic swamp, which from the front looks like a regular alpha/beta swamp, has not the typical corners of a regular card, but fits the description of an Alpha card (I have never seen one to actually compare this) and has a regular backcover. The traces of wear seem to be normal for 24 years of existence. Print pattern appears to be normal. But the card is way too stiff! In fact, the card is as stiff as two cards being glued together, but it is too thin for that. It has two sheets of the blue paper in between though and seems to be glued together from two non-complete cards, i.e. one missing its front and the other missing its back. I tried to carefully split the cards and could do this in a small part, but stopped since it didn't reveal anything, just white surfaces of cardboard being held together by glue. Furthermore, the glue appears to be spread very evenly and not being done by an actual human hand.
Even more mysteriously, I bought the swamp at a fleemarket from someone who also sold other proxy cards, which I didn't buy. The proxies were really old and the seller told me, he stopped playing around 1998. The proxies fit that story, since they were only old cards (Power 9, Duals, Ali from Cairo and then some) and were only printed pictures glued to real cards, i.e. the Black Lotus proxy was glued to a card from the International Edition.
So, since I started playing in 2002, does any of the older players knows cards like my 'fake' swamp? And why did anyone forge a basic swamp twenty years ago? And in this quality? I'm pretty curious!
P.S.: I try to upload pictures later (which are totally unspectacular), but have currently no scanner and not enough light for a photo. Hopefully, I have time tomorrow.
Fake beta and sometimes alpha commons and basic lands were the usual practise materials when people tested rebacking. The description fits the usual rebacked card.
In 1998 a friend of mine decided that he wanted to test rebacking cards, after another friend had bought a rebacked dual land. He was pretty open about telling everybody he knew what he was doing and allowing people to examione the results, so they could in turn better spot fakes. In our part of the world we never got many fakes, and the few we got were all rebacks (or maybe nobody knew how to spot dark beta...).
The first few rebacks were pretty terrible, but the later ones became somewhat harder to spot without close examination. The corners were the easiest places to spot problems and while we agreed that with better tools he possibly could have made fakes with only minimal thickness difference, the corners would always be the problem and nowadays most people know to do a light test to expensive cards would make selling these not feasible.
I'm not telling any tips, but there are plenty of ways to increase the quality if you know your crafts. Luckily the CE and ICE cards are relatively scarce (and duals and P9 are pretty expensive too) these days and there's no real point in making beta fakes (and as alpha they won't pass muster.) With current printer technology printing proxies is also much easier.
I would guess that there are still some rebacked cards floating around, but as they are really easy to spot and most glues used 20 years back have started degrading and/or hardening, they should become less common all the time.
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