Artificial Aging

With vintage issues from tobacco cards to 50’s gum cards, counterfeiters are always looking for ways to make their product look more realistic. Most counterfeiters will use artificial aging techniques to try and dupe buyers into believing a card is real. This is usually an attempt to hide flaws in the printing.

The most common technique used by counterfeiters is “Staining”. This method involves using a solution of lemon juice, dirt, and exposure to the sun’s UV rays to imitate the natural aging process. Since aging is a natural process age marks that appear on a card should appear to be evenly brown. In most cases where a card is artificially aged the brown stain appears as if someone had spilled a drink on it. Stains of course are not always an indication of forgery because cards have had things spilled on them, but it is also not an indication of age.

A more resourceful version of artificial aging is a technique known as “Painting”. Here the forger will take a thin paintbrush and apply a very thin layer of brown or tan watercolor paint. This is done to try and tone all the areas of the card evenly. How well the deception appears is dependent on how talented the forger is at his nefarious craft. In most cases when the card is put under very bright light or under a black light the brush strokes will become evident.

Here are a couple of examples of possibly forged artificially aged cards.



My thanks to greywickedboy for these pictures. Everyone have a great weekend and

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