Icon Authentics

[SetBuilder]

Steve,

With prices of autographs doubling every 5 years in the hobby, it's surely going to attract a whole new level of forger. Probably from the art or antiquities world. New tools will be needed in the toolbox, even if only marginal.

The ink test would probably be most useful to filter out inks that couldn't have been used during the player's lifetime. For instance, Parker "Quink" ink, which came out in the 1950's with a special drying solvent. If you've ever used Quink, you'll see that it has a distinct gold chemical sheen to it when you tilt the paper sideways near a light or under magnification. Dead giveaway that it's modern. Old ink would have contained a primitive pigment like indigo.

Like you said, it's not perfect. But forgers make mistakes.

For example, one of the most successful art forgers, Wolfgang Beltracchi, was only caught because he used a white paint containing titanium white. He forged a Heinrich Campendonk painting, and titanium white wasn't available when Campendonk died 1914.

As far as the cost of spectrometers and other equipment, it will probably come down over time. There's already prototypes of mini-spectrometers that can be plugged into a smartphone. I imagine that the authenticator of the future will carry one around in their pocket.