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davidcyclebackLongwave black lights, such as which Brian is offering and I recommend people buy, can identify many modern reprints of vintage cards, photographs (wirephotos, Ty Cobb photos, Charles Lindbergh photos, etc) and any vintage paper material. A black light doesn't know what is a baseball card or postcard or movie poster or 1942 Yankees ticket, but it can identify many types of modern paper and cardstock used to make those things. Many types of modern paper and cardstock used modern chemicals which are invisible under normal daylight, but fluoresce brightly way under black light. Even if you know nothing about 1920s movie posters or Italian postcards or have never seen before a Batter Up or 1923 Maple Crispette , you can still identify many reprints with a black light due to the fluorescence.
Black lights are easy to use, and you don't need any scientific background to get results.
It is not my desire to sell something here, but my baseball card guide has a chapter on how black light works and how a colletor can identify reprints with it. I offer this guide here also as there seems to have been a lot of questions about authenticating vintage baseball cards in general (T205, Cracker Jacks posts) that the guide also answers. I guess you can consider it a suppliment to Brian's offerings.
'Judging the Authenticity of Early Baseball Cards':
http://www.cycleback.com/baseballcardguide.htm
I set up the web page to allow people to pay right away with PayPal. Just click the magic button.
I should also add that the guide also shows how a black light is used to identify reprinted and fake modern cards, including 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan, 1984 Fleer Update Roger Clemens and 1979 OPC Wayne Gretzky. Black light is important for modern card collectors too, especially if they are hunters of raw Jordan RCs and such.