For people who have been in the hobby for a long time, fakes are often easy to detect, and will usually have something obviously wrong with them. For a beginner, it is of course more difficult.
Most of the discussions on this board concerning fakes, as well as virtually every aspect of card collecting, are about T206's. And most of the bad cards we see come from that set. Typically, a fake T206 will have the wrong font, the wrong color lettering (black instead of brown), wrong back color (such as red Piedmonts or Sovereigns), have borders that are too wide, or have a front/back combination that cannot possibly exist. Learning all of this takes time, and nothing is better than to handle as many actual cards as possible. It is always easier to spot a fake or altered card by holding it, not by viewing a scan.
Sometimes the fakes are not as obvious, and much more difficult to detect online. In these cases, often the "tell" is the wording of the description. When you see a really funky looking card, and the seller states his grandfather left it to him when he died, you should always be really suspicious.
And of course you should feel free to ask questions on this board without fear of reprisal.
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