Hi guys, I bought a mana crypt from this ebay seller, and I am beginning to fear it isnt real, so here are some tests I have conducted out, and I hope you guys can help me out with this, thanks!
The pics (at least for me) are pretty tiny, so I cannot really look at the printing. As for the light test, test it against another artifact card from the same time period, as we cannot know how bright your light source is, so we have no way to tell if the card lets too much or too little light through.
You should also check if the spanish Mana Crypt has been listed on one of the chinese fake batches, as I don't remember it being in the early lists at least. If you cannot find it on any of the fake batches, it's pretty likely real, unless it feels really off.
I just quickly tested the feel of my spanish Crypt I've had for few years and the card feels slightly less smooth than modern cards, due to either age or small changes in the inks, primers or the cardboard, so compare it with IA-Mirage era cards for the feel of material.
As an aside, counterfeiters are less likely to counterfeit Spanish/Portuguese cards, as these cards sell for less than the English versions and it is unlikely that they speak Spanish/Portuguese, being based in China.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
The last batch of chinese fakes (that I know of) included about 20+ cards in Italian for some reason. Maybe because they had lot of Italian buyers (this is pure speculation, I don't know this for a fact), but so far they had few cards in chinese (FUT Tarmogoyf) and some italian ones, in adition to few random foreign cards.
I did a quick check and the last faked Mana Crypt was in English, meaning that if there has been older versions in other languages those would be older generations and pretty easy to tell as fakes.
And I use this thread on another forum as my source. Please read the thread through. There are several fake-lists included.
I know this topic is almost 4 years old now, but I'm doing some research recently because I'm actually looking to purchase a Spanish Mana Crypt and I found a website that clearly lists information and photos of the books that the Mana Crypt insert came in.
"The books were also available in German but were not distributed by HarperPrism and therefore have no cards associated with them. The Italian book cycle was discontinued after the second novel due to poor sales. In Brazil, Arena and Mana Crypt cards were inserted inside the first two books, so it was not necessary to send back any coupon, the same applies for Italian and Spanish cards."
-- [url=https://www.magiclibrarities.net/109-rarities-harperprism-book-inserts-english-cards-index.html]
So apparently, unlike the English version, the Spanish version of the card was just inserted directly into the book. Sounds legit to me. Hope this helps
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mtg-mana-crypt-NM-MINT-wb-spanish/191834552606?_trksid=p2047675.c100012.m1985&_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIC.MBE&ao=1&asc=36332&meid=0707d8f2fa3a4e3c8c45815568bdf14e&pid=100012&rk=1&rkt=10&sd=201528944170
The pics (at least for me) are pretty tiny, so I cannot really look at the printing. As for the light test, test it against another artifact card from the same time period, as we cannot know how bright your light source is, so we have no way to tell if the card lets too much or too little light through.
You should also check if the spanish Mana Crypt has been listed on one of the chinese fake batches, as I don't remember it being in the early lists at least. If you cannot find it on any of the fake batches, it's pretty likely real, unless it feels really off.
I just quickly tested the feel of my spanish Crypt I've had for few years and the card feels slightly less smooth than modern cards, due to either age or small changes in the inks, primers or the cardboard, so compare it with IA-Mirage era cards for the feel of material.
Hopefully this helped some.
Set to default
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
I did a quick check and the last faked Mana Crypt was in English, meaning that if there has been older versions in other languages those would be older generations and pretty easy to tell as fakes.
And I use this thread on another forum as my source. Please read the thread through. There are several fake-lists included.
Set to default
"The books were also available in German but were not distributed by HarperPrism and therefore have no cards associated with them. The Italian book cycle was discontinued after the second novel due to poor sales. In Brazil, Arena and Mana Crypt cards were inserted inside the first two books, so it was not necessary to send back any coupon, the same applies for Italian and Spanish cards."
-- [url=https://www.magiclibrarities.net/109-rarities-harperprism-book-inserts-english-cards-index.html]
So apparently, unlike the English version, the Spanish version of the card was just inserted directly into the book. Sounds legit to me. Hope this helps