[oflannabhra]

Most of MtG’s secondary market value is protected by how difficult it is (or how costly it is) for cheap printers to match Cartamundi’s (and other global printers) offset printing processes. The number of counterfeit tests (green dot, black layer, Deckmaster, etc) that are simple and useful for basic users to determine counterfeits all trace back to the printing processes WotC uses.

I am amazed by how much value is protected by such a small technological detail

[Cthulhu_]

It relies heavily on the security and trustworthiness of the printer as well though, same as any kind of company where their product's value far outweighs its production cost (like cash money); I can imagine that before the big boom, employees would be able to take some cards / boxes / sheets home if they wanted to.

[brazzy]

I worked on an application used in a paper factory that produced paper for banknotes. The entire point of the application was to make sure every single sheet of the paper was accounted for. There were unique barcodes printed on it as soon as it was dry enough to do so, and tracked throughout the production process.

Fun fact: confirming the proper disposal of damaged sheets required special privileges, and the name for the user role was "destroyer". So someone could rightfully claim their job title was "destroyer".

[oflannabhra]

yeah, there is a lot of control of printing artifacts that are required. Some of those do make it out, either through QC issues [0] or through WotC itself gifting test print cards and full sheets to employees or as prizes. However, the ability to generate truly authentic MtG cards requires two things: million dollar Heidelberg offset printing machines and the original offset printing files for the card backs (which have not changed since release as far as I'm aware).

[0] - https://blog.cardsphere.com/misprints-and-human-mistakes-a-b...