

Rebacked cards fail 99% of times the weight test. It has been usually done with Collector’s Edition, to create fake Betas.

This is conceptually a bit more complicate – it’s a forgery in the sense that 2 real cards are glued together. Here you can see a zoom on the mana symbol: The next example is a fake Arabian Nights Drop of Honey – a card that was worth a few dollars and now sell for over 250. The final result looks abnormal and artificial to a trained eye. Below you will find the back of a forged Unlimited Black Lotus. However, a worn-out proxy looks different. Common trick include creating shuffling wear, scratches, etc. Scammer selling fakes are artificially “aging” the cards. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or you want to give me your input on some topics. I will describe in the following section the tests that I perform to guarantee the authenticity or the cards I trade and their expected results. However, the still have a totally different printing patter, a different, more “glossy” feel when you touch them and a different “penetrability” when exposed to strong direct light. The latter type (new high quality “blue core” proxies) are somehow more tough because they have almost the same thickness and a very similar weight. The first 2 are really easy to spot because they almost invariably have a different weight and thickness.

Generally speaking, there are 3 types of forged Magic cards: “rebacked” cards (basically, 2 cards glued together), old proxies and new “blue core” proxies. They are not particularly expensive: the entry level price for the full kit would be around 100 USD, a negligible amount of money if you are interested in trading P9 and similar stuff. If you want to replicate this test by yourself you will need a few tools. Purpose of this page is to describe several test that will help you to spot them.

When I touch one of this fakes, a red alarm light start blinking in my head. However, they are still far away from being able to fool someone that has been trading and playing more than 20 years. How good are they? Well, I would say “very good” or “very, very good”, depending on your knowledge of the game. As you will know if you are reading this lines, the secondary MTG cards market has been recently flooded by an impressive amount of high quality proxies.
