Counterfeits are part of daily trading in Probably Stolen: Cyberpunk Shopkeeper Sim, the Questing Goose Studio and tinyBuild shop sim on Steam. Sellers walk in with fakes, and the most-faked items each have a manual that lists what gives a fake away.
The game introduces fakes on Day 3, when the Mentor warns that a shipment of counterfeit cigarettes has just been unloaded on the station and hands you a Magnifying Glass, the Hemingway Cigarette Authenticity Handbook and a note on visual inspection. From then on, any item marked as inspectable can be checked at the counter before you buy it.
Quick answer: Drag the Magnifying Glass onto an inspectable item to open the Inspection Tray, compare it with the item’s manual, then tick the matching Counterfeit Check reason and press Confront. One real issue is enough to make the client lower the price.
How the Magnifying Glass and Inspection Tray work
Bring the Magnifying Glass and the manual for whatever you’re buying. You can open any manual in your inventory with right-click > Read, so keep the relevant one handy while you check.
The Mentor’s Visual Inspection note sums up the whole process, and our Magnifying Glass and Confront guide covers each click in detail.
Counterfeit tells by item and manual
| Item | Manual | Main counterfeit tells |
|---|---|---|
 Pack of Hemingway Cigarettes | Hemingway Identification Guide (Hemingway Cigarette Authenticity Handbook) | Print faults, wrong color, missing or broken security seal |
 Food Stamp | Food Stamp Identification Handbook | Print faults, missing logo, invalid value, wrong seal |
 Immunivax Injector | Immunivax Assessment Guide | Missing or faulty label, invalid serial number, wrong colors |
| Ribwich | Ribwich Appraisal Guide | Bad production date, facility number, logo or sticker |
 Water | Water Trading Manual | Purity doesn’t match the label |
Whatever the item, the Counterfeit Check panel in the Inspection Tray gives you five reasons to confront with: Lettering Issues, Color Issues, Seal Issues, Logo Issues and Box Issues. Pick the one that matches the fault you found.
Pack of Hemingway Cigarettes
Fake Hemingways are common on the station, and they’re worth far less than the real thing. The Hemingway Identification Guide, which opens as the Station Trade Commission’s Hemingway Cigarette Authenticity Handbook, lists the print tells directly: “Spelling errors, misaligned text or uneven print quality on the pack, differences in color, font or missing lettering all indicate fraud.”
The handbook pictures each check side by side:
- Lettering: the genuine pack reads “Hemingway” in its own script. “HEMINGWAY” in block capitals is an incorrect font, and “Heminway” is an incorrect spelling.
- Logo: compare the cross-and-vine emblem on the pack with the genuine example.
- Color: the handbook says to “Utilise color card to compare”, so hold the pack against the Hemingway Color Checker.
- Security seal: a genuine pack has an intact seal on the top flap.
For a side-by-side of every cigarette tell, see fake vs real Hemingway cigarettes. The seal is the fastest check of all. “Hemingway Cigarettes are never sold without a security seal. If the security seal is missing or broken, the cigarette is a counterfeit.”
A genuine pack is still worth buying for resale. On Mark Up difficulty, a Scavenger offered one for 100 credits on Day 3, and on Day 4 an Upper Level Visitor interested in Substances paid 115 credits a pack.
Food Stamp
Counterfeit Food Stamps turn up regularly in the Lower Levels. The Food Stamp Identification Handbook flags these faults:
- Spelling errors, misaligned text, or differences in color or font
- Missing lettering
- A missing logo
- A printed value that isn’t 40, 80, 120, 160, 200 or 240 Credits
- A seal that doesn’t match the value
Use 160 Credits as the seal cutoff: a stamp worth that amount or more has a security seal, while one worth less does not. A stamp showing any amount beyond the six official values is fake.
Every Food Stamp has a chip. A missing or damaged chip makes the stamp unusable even if it’s genuine.
Immunivax Injector
The Immunivax Assessment Guide has you check four parts of the injector: the indicator, the label, the serial number and the body. Some faults mean a fake, while others mean a real injector you can’t use.
| Part | What to check | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Indicator | Shows Expired or Empty | Not usable |
| Label | Missing | Counterfeit |
| Label | Spelling, company name, product name, font | Possible errors |
| Serial number | Seven digits, 1250000-4559999 | Must be valid |
| Serial number | Recalled batch | Unusable |
| Body | Clearly visible cracks | Unusable |
| Body | Main colors | Compare to correct colors |
Label errors to look for are spelling mistakes, a missing company name, a missing product name, or a significant font discrepancy. The first three digits of the serial number are the batch number. The Product Recall Notice lists batches 250, 251, 301, 355, 385, 386 and 421, and any injector from those batches is unusable.
Ribwich
The Ribwich Appraisal Guide marks a Ribwich as counterfeit when any of these fail:
- Production date is missing, invalid, or outside both production runs
- Packing facility number is missing or invalid (there are 35 facilities)
- Davre logo is missing or incorrect
- A 2nd-run Ribwich has no Ribwich sticker, or the wrong one
- A Deluxe Edition has only one of sesame bun and extra pickles
The 1st production run covers January 425 to December 429, and the 2nd run covers January 432 to December 438. Watch the sticker rule in both directions, since 1st-run Ribwich never have the sticker. A Deluxe Edition needs both the sesame bun and the extra pickles.
If the packaging is absent, ripped or counterfeit, the value is 40 credits no matter what else applies. Condition-based pricing for the Ribwich comes from appraisal, covered in our Probably Stolen appraisal guide.
Water
Water fakes are about the label, not the bottle. The Water Trading Manual, which Water Merchants start with, grades water by purity:
| Grade | Purity |
|---|---|
| Pure Water | 99.9%+ |
| High-Quality | 99%-99.9% |
| Basewater | 98%-99% |
| Ghostwater | 96%-98% |
| Rustwater | 90%-96% |
| Gutterflow | under 90% |
The manual warns that “Water sold on the station may not be labeled correctly, whether intentionally or not.” Your check is a Water Testing Strip, a cheap way to test purity before you buy.
Ghostwater sold as Basewater is the classic Lower Levels scam. Ghostwater is “Indistinguishable by eye from other higher quality water, yet unsafe to drink unfiltered.” so only a test will catch it. Rustwater and Gutterflow are harder to pass off, because their color gives them away. The manual also notes that “Selling large volume of mislabeled Ghostwater is a crime.”
Expect buyers to test you back. “Customers requesting large amounts of water will typically carry a Water Testing Kit”, while “Tourists and Upper Level Citizens are often too oblivious to test the purity of the water they buy.”
Fakes are only half the job. Genuine items can still be worth more or less depending on their condition, and the Appraisal Guild teaches you to grade them. For everything else about trading, start with our complete Probably Stolen guide.
