Just taking a shot in the dark, but the photo in the article suggests it was kept in between pages of a binder. Warm climate, cheap materials, and under pressure makes me feel the disc is just degraded not fake. Regular Vinyl can get easily damaged, I doubt a cheapo mini version would survive decades with absolutely no protection.
Also possible that there may have been multiple in the household if so many were printed and mailed out? Maybe they turned the real one in for the prize money and then kept a non-winning one in a scrap book? Memories over time are weird so they could’ve convinced themselves that they kept the real one
Makes sense - the article says it’s just a regular piece of plastic, but it’s printed and clearly isn’t just a copy (unless you can photocopy onto plastic?)
Just taking a shot in the dark, but the photo in the article suggests it was kept in between pages of a binder. Warm climate, cheap materials, and under pressure makes me feel the disc is just degraded not fake. Regular Vinyl can get easily damaged, I doubt a cheapo mini version would survive decades with absolutely no protection.
Also possible that there may have been multiple in the household if so many were printed and mailed out? Maybe they turned the real one in for the prize money and then kept a non-winning one in a scrap book? Memories over time are weird so they could’ve convinced themselves that they kept the real one
Makes sense - the article says it’s just a regular piece of plastic, but it’s printed and clearly isn’t just a copy (unless you can photocopy onto plastic?)