Is OldIronSides Indiana card scanning?
Yeah I've seen a couple of theirs come through too — the tactile feel is pretty close to the real thing, though the raised elements weren’t as pronounced as the genuine HOI cards I carry. That said, mine passed the bend test without issue and the material thickness held up fine in my wallet for a week. I wouldn’t say it looks 1:1, especially under UV, but for most casual checks it’ll do the job. Definitely worth a second glance.
Can’t say for sure, but I’ve handled a few of their IDs and the material thickness felt decent — not perfect, but not flimsy either. The microprinting clarity held up under a loop, which was a plus. Mine passed the bend test, though the drop test sound was a bit off compared to a real one. Overall, it’s got decent optics, but I’d still give it a close look before relying on it. Anyone else tried their newer batches recently?
Picked up an OldIronSides Indiana card about six weeks ago and ran it through several scanner types to see how it actually performs. Here's what I found.
The physical card looks sharp. Indiana's current design puts a gold torch on a blue header, and OldIronSides nailed the color accuracy on that element. The torch graphic has fine detail lines that some vendors smear or blur; OIS kept the crisp edges intact.
Mag stripe and barcode
The magnetic stripe swiped clean every time across three test locations — a bar, a grocery self-checkout, and a convenience store. Zero hesitation on any swipe.
The 2D PDF417 barcode on the back is where things get more interesting. Indiana encodes a lot of data in their barcode, including a specific DD field and issue date. OIS populated all these fields correctly in my sample. When I ran it through a dedicated ID verification scanner of the type bars typically use, it returned all the correct information without flagging anything.
UV and tactile
Indiana IDs don't use RFID, so that's not a factor. Under a 365nm blacklight, authentic Indiana cards show a Statehouse dome image and repeating text elements. OIS's card showed these features at close to the right brightness level — the dome outline was clear and the repeating text was legible.
One area where OIS could improve: the tactile feel of raised text. On genuine Indiana DLs, the license number and certain header text have a palpable raised quality to them. The OIS version is slightly flatter in those areas, noticeable if you're deliberately running a fingertip across them. It's not a problem that scanners pick up, but a trained manual checker might notice.
Corner rounding and card thickness were both on spec. The perforations spelling out IN diagonally were present and correctly placed.
Bottom line: for scan reliability, OIS Indiana performs well. The tactile flatness is the one area where genuine cards feel different, but that's a secondary concern compared to barcode and stripe performance.