What have been your worst experiences with counterfeits? I invite you to add more methods and/or data in the comments. That is what I hope I could do with this article. They may learn from such conversations as well and it's a nice way to make the community aware of the issue. Talk to other Magic players about dubious cards and the methods you are using to identify them. You'll have to perform multiple tests and put together a puzzle to get a conclusive impression of what you are looking at. What I want to express with this is that there are situations in which only one method won't do the job for you. You could also look at the printing of the text box or the inner black border. Maybe you should go for the weight test in this case. If your card is thick as a brick and doesn't let any light through, you can be pretty sure it is fake. Many of the latter are easy to identify with one or two specific identification methods. There are good counterfeits and there are bad counterfeits. But you should be careful when dealing with higher priced Revised cards also, because the faded-color look is easier to replicate than the richer colors of for example Unlimited. It is way more difficult to get the feeling and the many distinctive characteristics of 93/94 cards right. The most targeted cards when it comes to counterfeiting are Modern cards, especially post- M15. The material is the same on commons and rares after all. The chance somebody counterfeits a dollar Revised or Unlimited card is tiny, so you should be good to go with some cheap copies to get a feel for the cards. Get some control cards of the sets you consider buying into. The Belgian cards have a matter finish to them. These inconsistencies are very common in Revised and mid-90s sets like Mirage and Visions, which were partly printed in Belgium. In the pictures below you can see some inconsistencies in the brightness of the cards. But print variations of a certain degree are quite common. Many Magic players think that all their cards must have the same brightness and color saturation. In this case you should weigh your card: see 'Thickness and Weight' below. So if your supposed Beta card is very glossy and shiny, you might have a rebacked card. People basically cut the corners of a CE/IE card, replaced the back with the regular back of any original card, and sold it as a genuine card from Limited Edition (Beta) for way more money. This is important to note because they were often used for so-called 'rebacking' when CE and IE were super cheap. Note that Collectors' Edition and International Edition are an exception to the rule when it comes to old cards.

Mtg shadow of doubt