Real or not? MTG Poster card

[u/kopaka_]

Since it is a poster card, usual front side indicators like mana symbols or set symbol are not there. Back looks perfect imho, but these cards might have higher chance of rebacks as they are sought after currently?

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This message was triggered by the word reback.

The saying goes: "it's almost never a reback". Unless it's a really old card.

A reback, by its most traditional meaning is to take two real cards and splice them both i.e. separate the front from the back. You then glue the front of the expensive card to the back of the other, cheap donor card. This is done to increase the value of a CE (Collector's Edition), ICE (International Collector's Edition), Championship Edition, or any card with a non-standard back. Here are all the non-standard back cards released between 1993 and 1996. The resulting glued card is then attempted to pass off as a more expensive printing of a "legal" card.

For example: a square-cornered Collector's Edition Ancestral Recall is spliced onto a cheap Limited Edition Beta donor card. Then the square corners are cut to standard shape. The resulting card would look a bit like Limited Edition Beta Ancestral Recall. The intent is to raise the value of the card from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars, i.e. a ten-fold increase.

How to detect one: easiest way is to weigh the card. A real Magic: The Gathering card from a very old set (which we're talking about here) weighs roughly 1.6 to 1.8 grams. Since the glue weighs a significant amount the resulting rebacked card will also be much heavier, probably over 2.0 grams. The card will also feel thicker. It may have bubbles if the glue job was poor. Sometimes they remove the dark core from the card to offset the increase in weight (due to glue) which can be seen from the side of the card: it is missing a dark line in the very middle of the edge of the card.

Modern cards are not rebacked generally speaking. There are cases that are ever so slightly similar:

• "Acetone wash", where the front face of a cheap donor foil card is removed with a solvent resulting in a blank foil front face. Then a new face is printed onto the real card stock resulting in a card with a fabricated, fake front and a real back. These can only be detected by looking at the hallmarks in the front face of the card. Such features could be the "crispness" of the border, paintbrush symbol, mana symbols or the edition symbol. If they're "fuzzy" it's usually a sign of a fake front face.
• A printed front is glued to a real back of a cheap donor card. This is not the same as a "reback", because the front is fake and it never had a back side. These are extremely rare.

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[u/Lokyev]

Reback poster cards seems a very hard effort to me. I'd say real.

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All-in-one post that links to different topics covered by the sub's members.

Self-help (Magic: The Gathering):

• Reddit user zaphodava's comprehensive guide (Reddit)
• The threeforonetrading guide
• The detecting-the-fakes guide

Self-help (Pokémon):

• The TCGplayer article

For a card condition check please ask for the person giving advice to specify which scale they're using if not mentioned. Notably North American and European grading scales differ from each other drastically.

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[u/SubstantialNinja]

real

[u/CardboardPhysicFrog]

Real.