5 ms·

FYI, these yellow dots are part of a Secret Service program to fight counterfeit currency. It was big news a couple decades ago and is well understood in art/p

FYI, these yellow dots are part of a Secret Service program to fight counterfeit currency. It was big news a couple decades ago and is well understood in art/printing circles. There are host of similar programs to protect printed money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

illwrks 2y ago
Seconded. The counterfeiters are idiots.
- jsheard 2y ago
  Maybe they are, but some of these fakes were authenticated by a third party whose entire job is to serve as a trusted authority for collectors, so they're even bigger idiots for not noticing such a well known tell. This throws everything they've ever graded into doubt.
  - snet0 2y ago
    Precisely this! This seems like a hard thing to spot from a layperson's perspective, but this is literally the purpose of their company, and these printer identification dots seem to be quite well-known in art and printing circles! This should never happen and the fact it did definitely should bring some reputational harm to CGC.
- sleepybrett 2y ago
  Are they? They passed off all these cards and will likely get away with it. The people left holding these cards are the ones who got 'screwed'. Though collecting, and paying high premiums, for pieces of cardboard backed by barely anything at all probably means they were screwing themselves to begin with. (IE A game of pokemon with 100% proxies is just as fun as a game of pokemon with no proxies)
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    Art forgery is a crime. The original creators could, theoretically, be jailed for this.
    - debugnik 2y ago
      Is it still art forgery if the originals didn't exist? I think it's unclear whether these prototype designs were ever real or part of the scam.
      - sophacles 2y ago
        Yes. There have been cases of a "lost work" being discovered and then later it's found out that the work was a forgery. Here's an article with some examdples: https://magazine.artland.com/the-art-of-forgery-art-forgers-duped-world/ https://magazine.artland.com/the-art-of-forgery-art-forgers-...
    - sleepybrett 2y ago
      The first seller of record can simply say 'A customer brought these in, I bought them after getting them cgc rated. The rating agency signed off on them so I had no idea that they could be forgeries' .. repeat back for their seller ad infinitum.
  - illwrks 2y ago
    I guess when I called them idiots the context in my mind was "how could they think they could get away with it using digital printing". They've committed fraud, plain and simple. As a consequence now all things like this may get closer scrutiny and fakes like these will be binned. For some reason I'm reminded of the fake wine guy... taking advantage of the fact that valuable wines are kept as investments, so he faked them... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan
kmeisthax 2y ago
EURion is a funny[1] kind of DRM, what caught the fake Pokemon cards is Xerox DocuColor[0], a watermarking technology. The difference is that DRM is designed to prevent you from copying something, while watermarking is designed to make you dox yourself if you copy something. I've yet to see evidence that EURion et. all actually stop counterfeiting, but watermarking has been very effective at finding counterfeiters. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots [1] Most DRM is intended to enforce copyright; but the state is not asserting copyright over the image of a banknote. There are cases where it is legal and moral to completely reproduce a faithful image of a banknote, and those cases are much broader than the various exceptions to copyright that exist.
- skyyler 2y ago
  >watermarking is designed to make you dox yourself if you copy something Is that a legal requirement on paper somewhere? It seems like an expensive feature to add if not required.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    Not really, the firmware just adds the dots automatically to the rendered print. It's just datetime and the serial in most of the version of this. What's expensive about that?
    - PinkSheep 2y ago
      It is expensive at scale. In a world where each gram of CO₂ is taxed. "Windows Timer Resolution: Megawatts Wasted"[0] - Microsoft has since added coarse timers and coalescence. [0] https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-resolution-megawatts-wasted/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-r...
      - rtkwe 2y ago
        Printers probably use more ink keeping their heads clean in inkjet printers than they ever do printing these dots on the page. And even if it is expensive the customers bear that expense and send it right back to the printer companies. However many microliters of ink a customers' printers use is just more ink bought from the manufacturer.

illwrks 2y ago

Seconded. The counterfeiters are idiots.

jsheard 2y ago
Maybe they are, but some of these fakes were authenticated by a third party whose entire job is to serve as a trusted authority for collectors, so they're even bigger idiots for not noticing such a well known tell. This throws everything they've ever graded into doubt.
- snet0 2y ago
  Precisely this! This seems like a hard thing to spot from a layperson's perspective, but this is literally the purpose of their company, and these printer identification dots seem to be quite well-known in art and printing circles! This should never happen and the fact it did definitely should bring some reputational harm to CGC.
sleepybrett 2y ago
Are they? They passed off all these cards and will likely get away with it. The people left holding these cards are the ones who got 'screwed'. Though collecting, and paying high premiums, for pieces of cardboard backed by barely anything at all probably means they were screwing themselves to begin with. (IE A game of pokemon with 100% proxies is just as fun as a game of pokemon with no proxies)
- sandworm101 2y ago
  Art forgery is a crime. The original creators could, theoretically, be jailed for this.
  - debugnik 2y ago
    Is it still art forgery if the originals didn't exist? I think it's unclear whether these prototype designs were ever real or part of the scam.
    - sophacles 2y ago
      Yes. There have been cases of a "lost work" being discovered and then later it's found out that the work was a forgery. Here's an article with some examdples: https://magazine.artland.com/the-art-of-forgery-art-forgers-duped-world/ https://magazine.artland.com/the-art-of-forgery-art-forgers-...
  - sleepybrett 2y ago
    The first seller of record can simply say 'A customer brought these in, I bought them after getting them cgc rated. The rating agency signed off on them so I had no idea that they could be forgeries' .. repeat back for their seller ad infinitum.
- illwrks 2y ago
  I guess when I called them idiots the context in my mind was "how could they think they could get away with it using digital printing". They've committed fraud, plain and simple. As a consequence now all things like this may get closer scrutiny and fakes like these will be binned. For some reason I'm reminded of the fake wine guy... taking advantage of the fact that valuable wines are kept as investments, so he faked them... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan

kmeisthax 2y ago

EURion is a funny[1] kind of DRM, what caught the fake Pokemon cards is Xerox DocuColor[0], a watermarking technology. The difference is that DRM is designed to prevent you from copying something, while watermarking is designed to make you dox yourself if you copy something. I've yet to see evidence that EURion et. all actually stop counterfeiting, but watermarking has been very effective at finding counterfeiters. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots [1] Most DRM is intended to enforce copyright; but the state is not asserting copyright over the image of a banknote. There are cases where it is legal and moral to completely reproduce a faithful image of a banknote, and those cases are much broader than the various exceptions to copyright that exist.

skyyler 2y ago
>watermarking is designed to make you dox yourself if you copy something Is that a legal requirement on paper somewhere? It seems like an expensive feature to add if not required.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  Not really, the firmware just adds the dots automatically to the rendered print. It's just datetime and the serial in most of the version of this. What's expensive about that?
  - PinkSheep 2y ago
    It is expensive at scale. In a world where each gram of CO₂ is taxed. "Windows Timer Resolution: Megawatts Wasted"[0] - Microsoft has since added coarse timers and coalescence. [0] https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-resolution-megawatts-wasted/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2013/07/08/windows-timer-r...
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      Printers probably use more ink keeping their heads clean in inkjet printers than they ever do printing these dots on the page. And even if it is expensive the customers bear that expense and send it right back to the printer companies. However many microliters of ink a customers' printers use is just more ink bought from the manufacturer.