The copy is trimmed and fixed on an old cabinet card from the 1880s, which are routinely sold for 50 cents. What makes the forging business so seductive to the unscrupulous is the potentially large profit margin. Since these reproductions are sold by the dozen, a good forger can earn a pretty penny doing little besides finding ways to distribute the goods. Unless you know what a photograph is supposed to look like, you can be fooled big time. One of the things that every novice photo collector should know is that copied photographs look different from authentic ones.
Real photographs exhibit a continuous range of tones.
Copied photos consist of a series of very fine lines or tiny dots indicative of the photomechanical or the lithographic process. He says his suspicions were raised recently when he saw photographs at a Civil War antique show that were shrink-wrapped in plastic. Wes suggests that you never buy a photograph unless you can inspect it plain and simple. Copied photos usually display tiny dots or fine lines of color that can be seen up close with the naked eye. Sometimes forgers make images that look like old ambrotypes , often reproducing old developing and printing processes.