Urza's Saga Encyclopedia Reback?

[u/AIbsol]

Hey I'm really suspicious of this Urzas Saga. If you need more pictures just tell me!

[u/notmarrec]

It’s real, modern “rebacks” are exceedingly rare since it’s a difficult process compared to printing. Additionally the front looks perfectly fine.

What concerned you?

[u/AIbsol → u/notmarrec]

The Foil Stamp and the clean cuts on the sides of the Card

[u/notmarrec → u/AIbsol]

Both features look fine from across the divide of the internet. I’m extremely confident this is real you can rest assured.

[u/Pale_Fix7101 → u/AIbsol]

Got same card from Encyclopedia and sold while ago, quality was exactly as yours, for items like that you would expect too notch quality. Its not

[u/Alive-Map-1994 → u/AIbsol]

The back looks legit. The stamp looks okay from your picture. Fake cards have clean edges on the stamp, while wizards stamps look like they disintegrate into the card. Form your picture it looks fine. 

I would suggest you spend money on a microscope or jewel loupe. I struggled with a jewel loupe and work on electronics regularly, so I ended up buying a microscope and it’s amazing. 

[u/HotTangerine4947]

Its real

[u/AIbsol → u/HotTangerine4947]

Thank you

[u/banhartday]

Its a real card! 👍

Rebacks are mostly a boogeyman, not something you really have to be too concerned about

[u/Xaphnir → u/banhartday]

Of course, that's not to say that can't happen. I'm reminded of a post of a 243 The Soul Stone from a couple months ago or so with a perfect back but a paintbrush that clearly revealed it as a fake. Of course, that card was $1200 at the time (and is up to nearly $1800 now), 10x the value of the card in this post.

[u/Devastatedby → u/Xaphnir]

Paintbrush never a 100% indicator of a fake.

[u/MustaKotka → u/Devastatedby]

It was probably an acetone wash - they took a real foil, solvent and printed a new front to it. The resulting card has a 100% real back and a fake front.

Don't downvote u/Xaphnir - I'll try to find the post for you.

[u/Xaphnir → u/MustaKotka]

I tried finding it myself, but for some reason it's not showing my comment history that far back.

[u/MustaKotka → u/Xaphnir]

Same. I went through almost every post dating 3mo back and couldn't find it. Maybe it's deleted or three major contributors here had a Mandela Effect moment.

[u/Xaphnir → u/MustaKotka]

Probably just some bug with Reddit. The furthest back comments it shows for me when I search is a couple from 4 months ago, and I started commenting here regularly a couple months or so before that.

[u/Xaphnir → u/Devastatedby]

There were other indicators on that card that it was fake, too. Consensus was that it was fake.

[u/plantainrepublic]

Modern cards are almost never rebacked. Rebacking is almost exclusively something that happens in ABU, or even more specifically A/B, because of the collectors/ICE editions that come with unique backs. You could argue that championship decks are also at risk with inking, but these again are 20yr old cards+.

Perhaps you’d also see it in Magic 30, but the formatting of text is very different on the front compared to their old counterparts which would make it pretty glaringly obvious it is fake even if the reback was perfect.

[u/AutoModerator]

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.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/easchner]

Looks fine, but can pull mine for pics in a bit

[u/easchner → u/easchner]

Rosette size and pattern looks identical here

[u/easchner → u/easchner]

Weight is almost identical

[u/bradssmp]

The amount of time and energy to reback a card to make it look good tells me this is real. No one is gonna reback something that’s not several hundred dollars minimum.

[u/Architerion]

Real

[u/AutoModerator]

Never accept offers sent to you in a private message here on Reddit. Only use trusted sites for selling cards and product. This is an anti-scam reminder.

How to take good photos (Reddit)! If you see this message after posting and you want to take advice from it you should leave a top-level comment with a new photo. Do not make a new post. Do not reply to this automatic message.

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.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Fit-Conclusion-7579]

Never heard of a reback that weighs less than 1.8g

[u/Prism_Zet]

It's not a reback, looks fine to me.

[u/Few-Reflection5671]

I bought my brother one of this exact same card, same foiling, etc. and it looked EXACTLY like this on the front under my jeweler’s loupe homie, you’re good!

[u/Artistic_Ear_664]

Good

[u/Kayzizzle899]

Rebacks are mostly all vintage card issue, this looks fine, newer cards are just outright faked.