How to Detect Fake Magic the Gathering Cards?
Magic: The Gathering (MTG) a popular trading card game that many grew up playing. No matter we were playing on kitchen tables, in school yards, or on weekends with family and friends it was guaranteed to be a blast. The value of these treasured cards has risen in value in the past couple of years. The value of some of these cards exploded during the Covid-19 period as people start to rekindle with old hobbies. Thus the opportunity of counterfeiting Magic cards became a lucrative operation.
Initially the counterfeit cards were easily detectable but throughout the years presumably techniques of these forgery have vastly improved. To the extend some of these forgery had fooled some season players and collectors. At Twenty359 we want to ensure that players and collectors alike are protected thru the knowledge to detect these anomalies.
Detection Tools
First and foremost the Jewelers loupe, one of the most effective tool for a player or collector to own and evaluate authenticity and conditions of cards. The loupe is a rather cheap tool, it cost around $5-$8 dollars on Amazon or $5 – $12 SGD on Shopee and get one with a LED light and your eyes would thank you someday. The loupe is used to review the rosette pattern of Magic: The Gathering cards, as each printer has a slightly different way of printing these tiny pixels.
If you have a higher budget to splurge (I rather spend the money on MTG cards), you could get a Electronic Microscope that will set you back $70 – $150 dollars but definitely save your eyes from squinching too much and gives you a 200x magnification to review your rosette patterns.
The last tool that I personally love when evaluating older Alpha and Beta cards, the Electronic Weighting Scale. It is actually the same type of scale our mom’s use to measure flour when baking a cake. The difference is that the weight limit is around 100g/500g, the 100 gram scale is more then sufficient to weigh individual cards as Modern MTG cards weight about 1.80g.
40x LED Jewelers Loupe
A useful tool to look at the cards rosette patterns, fonts, printing method etc. The LED used for the light test which combining all findings to help determine the legitimacy of a card.
100g/500g Electronic Weighting Scale
Magic cards from different era have slightly different weight. In this article we will provide you with some findings of the weight of cards from different era of MTG.
Types of Test
With the tools covered lets move into the types of test we could use to determine if a Magic: The Gathering cards is authentic. There are methods that I personally endorse and there are methods that are pure evil and should not be performed. “I’m looking at you tear test”
** NOTE we suggest that you try to use several detection method for authenticity checking instead of just one.
The Light Test
This is one of the most common counterfeit detection method for Magic the Gathering cards:
Shine a strong concentrated light source through the card (eg. phone flash or LED from 40x Jewelers loupe) if the light can be clearly seen shining through your card is authentic. You should also see wavy blue patters between the layers of the cards.
Look out for the wavy blue/black core that is actually a layer of color adhesive between both surfaces. In the early days Magic cards were mostly only made using blue core, but in recent years Wizards has been known to use black core in some products. The newer counterfeiters have improved letting light passing through and some also have black core.
There is a recent exception on for Ixalan’s double-face cards whereby Wizards has “mistakenly printed on wrong card stock” and cards from this list will fail the light test. Check out the Article Here. (Wizards of the Coast took down the article) Another article by Hispers of the Coast.
Img 1.1 Magic the Gathering light test card comparison
The Green Dot
This test requires the Jewelers Loup or the Electronic Microscope which we mentioned above and this can be one of the more effective detection method to check/ review the authenticity of a card.
Img 1.2 four red dots forming a “L” shape
Look at the green mana symbol at the back of your Magic card through your loupe and within the green circle on the white “reflection” you should see four red dots that form a “L” shape (Refer to the image at the side). It is speculated that the same source file for the back of each Magic card has been used since the start of the game in 1993.
Throughout the years there are changes in the saturation of the card back but the “L” pattern always had remained. In the modern era printings there would be instances that you could only see three dots which also resembles the “L” shape due to slight inconstancies.
** IMPORTANT Re-back cards will pass the green dot test/ observation because the back of the card used are from real Magic cards. Check out the re-back section for more information.
Weight Test
As we previously briefly touched on the topic of the weight of Magic: The Gathering cards I want our readers to know that the grams of the card can vary, but they should stay within a certain threshold.
Modern Days MTG Cards
Weights between 1.75g – 1.83g
Vintage Cards (Pre 1996)
Weights between 1.71g – 1.75g
Do note that this method is mainly used to provide a gauge that if a card is re-backed and cards can weight slightly more because in more humid countries like Singapore the cards absorbs some moisture from the air.
**NOTE – Foil cards have a completely different weight and it differs from the foiling finishing.
Smell Test
This method was thought to me by a card store owner, which are mainly useful for identifying older Magic the Gathering cards. If you had old books (above 20 years) laying around you could give it a whiff, it has a unique “old” smell which is almost un-replicable.
Same with older Magic cards they have this unique “old” smell that new proxies counterfeit cards cannot replicate.
Tear/ Rip Test
The tear test is an absolutely unnecessary way to test the authenticity of a card, this method involves tearing the card in the middle and showing the blue/black core that is in between the outer layers of the card. If you combine methods above you will be able with 90% certainty know of the card in question is a real or fake card.
I believe that this extreme method are use by some as a countermeasure against someone that is selling or trading away their counterfeit cards. This way it guaranties that the fake Magic card would be out of circulation. Also bare in mind that the seller of the counterfeit card might or might not know it was fake, they might be a victim and got scammed themselves.
** NOTE – DO NOT in any circumstances rip someone else’s card without their consent. As the card fake or real it is still someone else’s property, all we can do it to let that person know its fake and they should not try to sell or trade it. If your advise get ignored then let the people around know that beware of that person and do not do business with him/her or them.
Re-backs
Re-back cards in Magic: The Gathering terms often refers to cards have been “surgically” altered. This happens when a CE/IE (Collectors Edition or International Edition) front surface has been carefully removed and glued with a card back from the BETA edition. Then the counterfeiter modify and trims the card edges to resemble the BETA card corners.
Re-back cards are technically real Magic cards but from 2 different generation. I believe that the people that modified these cards did not do it for esthetic purpose so that the cards looks good, but their sole and only reason is to scam players or collectors out of their hard earned money.
There are a couple of test to identify if you have a re-back card:-
- Shine light on the surface of the card, if you see wavy and uneven surface there is a chance it might be a re-back. (Some times water damage may be misunderstood as re-back)
- Use a electronic scale to measure the weight of the card in question. Beta cards are usually weight around 1.72g – 1.75g but re-back cards are usually 1.9g – 2.1g. Recently I have seen in a Facebook group at a detected re-back was weight at 1.70g – 1.72g and the surface of the card was pretty smooth. (The post had been taken down unfortunately)
- Card name and Artwork Author print. The print of the card name and the authors credit has a slight variation.
Img 1.5 Artwork author credit print variation Collectors Edition (left) vs Beta (right)
Text Print/ Expansion Symbol
Knowing how Magic: The Gathering cards are made gives you a better understanding of the reason behind the decision when the first Magic sets were produced.
Magic cards were printed using the offset printing method. In other words the images and text are printed separately during the printing process thus the blacks on the border and text are true black. Unlike the counterfeit cards that scans and copies the image of the entire card then duplicates it on another print sheet. Where have a video below showing how Cartamundi (the official MTG card printer) using the offset printing method on playing cards.
Did you know that the first Alpha MTG set has edges that resembles a deck of playing cards.
Img 1.3 Offset Print vs Direct Copy Print
Offset Printing Differences
The image on your left shows what is the difference between offset printing versus copy and paste.
Some of the counterfeiters have started to use offset printing and it nearly fooled me when I first saw them. (Img 1.4 The slight difference of the real and fake offset print) I was able to differentiate them by looking at the surface and texture, these counterfeit tends to have a very glossy surface and the surface would be a lot smoother. (Having said that some newer Magic sets like Battlebond have a glossy and smoother texture)
Img 1.4 The slight difference of the real and fake offset print
Conclusion
There are many more ways the MTG community has came out to combat counterfeit and what we have shown you today is just the ones we find most reliable after looking through thousands of cards. An example the holographic stamp on modern rare/mythic cards. When you see a counterfeit copy it is often slightly raised and can be peeled off just by scraping it with your finger nails.
As a player or collector it is important to have this detection knowledge so that you can be at ease when you get your next Black Lotus. On a more serious note this knowledge needs to be known so that buyers will reject the fake cards and with more education and knowledge going around it reduces the motivation of people selling fakes because the community is aware of how to determine a cards authenticity.
Updated 28th December 2022
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