The smell.

Vintage plastics have a specific odor to them. Outgassing butyrate. It can be really strong and rank. Like festering smelly socks. If you go to Pinfest in Allentown and have passed by the mayfair amusements booth, you've probably caught a wiff of it.

New plastics just have a faint smell of any other modern hard clear plastic.

Original 30 year old plastics often have a quazi paper backing that is near impossible to get off without scratching the white paint off.

None of my old craftsman tools have a distinct smell, so I couldn't tell you.

Some runs of repros had that problem too.

This is true!

But the originals have that burnt edge looking paper from hot cutting, age and decay.

I think that also OLD originals can be a bit brittle.

I have quite a few NOS sets for my games.

My MM and TZ and ToM and TAF sets are a BITCH the get the papers off, And they are properly stored indoors, in sealed bags.

Recently I used my last set of FH plastics on my Resto, fortunately 90% of the papers came off slowly with care.

It took 4 hours to get them unwrapped....but no damage.

Note:

Regardless of exact perfect color etc.

I am a BIG fan of clean crisply printed repros made out of PET-G.

There are some pretty good repos out there, but as always buyer beware.

I have 3 sets of IJ repros that are so bad, they are a JOKE...

It is true that inkjet printed plastics look faded compared to screened originals, but a lot has been done and they are getting better and better.

NOS plastic sets always came in a zip-lock bag, often with a Wms sticker on it.

The sheets were cut with the backing paper on them, hence the burned edges.

Protective film on the top was added sometimes when the pieces were put in the bags, but not always.

They sound like regular NOS.

However, generally the screened colors are pretty consistent per batch, but there have been variations.

I do like the rounded edges from the hot cutting vs the flat edges from laser cutting.

But it really doesnt matter if the colors are deep enough and somewhat match.

My repro Pop a Card ones I had gotten from Marco had the burn marks around the paper's edge.

I would say the best way to tell is variances in sizing from the originals. I've yet to find a repro that is nut on and some are way off. The Marco ones were bad enough that I had to redrill them (Marco did work with me on it though and were very helpful).

Die cutting and heat sealing repros has got to be a thing of the past.

Its just too expensive these days.