I bet we'll eventually see an "authenticity crisis," in which even experts won't be able to tell apart a train restored 50 years ago and an original. I guess such things as re-bent tabs might tell the story.
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Nope. There are always tell tale signs. People have been restoring trains for a long time. There might be a few folks who are so good that their work is hard to tell from original.
Many restorers mark their pieces.
There are a lot of folks that say a item is restored and many times it is a poor job with lots of shortcuts. Example: Outside of engine is painted in a color that originals get a better dollar for but they never paint the inside of the shell or under the frame. Frame rivets/flag stantions are painted over. Couplers are painted silver. Color painted was never used by Lionel. Wirering is jumper'd together rather than running a new wire.
There is many ways to tell.
Just look on eBay, look at the picture and notice the jobs that people do when they say it was restored. Most are bad and need to be redone.
Just remember that the job that is done on a train represents you and your work.
On all of my restored/rebuild trains A sharpie is used to write inside the date/ rebuild/modified and my name and they look better than new. Do not want to deceive anyone as it will bite you in the end
RonH: Excellent comments and advice! The "Brave New World" of 3-D printed parts will present new challenges regarding quality and authenticity!
