This is going to be a more casual review.
I HAVE BEEN IN THE VAN AND I AM A CHANGED MAN
No it’s not going to be like that the whole review. It’s just a buzz I have going.
It’s going to be more casual for a few reasons: I know very little about NJ’s ID and don’t have anything close to a physical on hand. I have a hard copy of a barbook (Keesing) and I’m unwinding with a sixer of Spotted Cow from New Glarus, which is to Wisconsin as What-a-Burger is to Texas as far as hype from locals go. Was in the area a while back and picked up some to see if the hype is real.
It is.
But this isn’t a beer review (Unless that’s what we want to see??) so let’s get on to the ID. I’m over the X/10 rating system. I’ll use it for the front page but it really doesn’t make sense anymore and I come off as a shill when I try and show that some aspect of the ID is good, so we’ll just break it down into similar sections with brief conclusions.
As some housekeeping, this ID is from a batch that may have been affected by some RTP issues as far as the barcode goes. I will not be factoring that in because it appears that was one batch and it appears it has been addressed.
As far as the Vendor experience went, the new website is a step in the right direction. While nothing was broken with the anonymousspeech form, it felt dated and similar security can be achieved with forms on sites. The order process was smooth, as was payment and updates via the order section of the site. Your Lorum Ipsum though. It’s like seeing a grown man not wear a belt with a shirt tucked in. Gotta fill those textboxes with something else my man. Maybe Rob Ford FunFacts. Anything but generator text.
Turnaround was just under 2 weeks, which is within the advertised time. This ID was picked up during the $25 dollar promo, which is quite a deal, but I would be remiss not to point out that the current price is no less of a deal ($45 at time of writing) and past prices have always been beyond competitive.
But with low prices come understandable limitations: This is an old ID, not in the sense that it is out of date (NJ still issues these today, Real ID hasn’t been fully implemented yet and will barely change the ID template at all) but it is old in the sense that it has barely changed in over two decades. The changes to the temp have been minimal at best. Given that, here is what this FFF NJ does well: The detail and saturation is reasonable and not overdone. There are some really faint NJs and really sickly oversaturated NJs where the yellowish layers are just popping out. Everything looks good under 10x when you consider you are looking through the sticker. Ah which brings me to the overlam. Construction wise the NJ is like a (Now Old) Indiana: Semi Gloss topped Teslin with a front and back sticker style over lam that is not flush with the ID. These overlams have become fairly infamous on this site as they tend to not fare the “Bend Test” as well as other Teslin IDs. Part of this is just a plain reality for the ID, as a physical will have the same issue at some point, just with slightly more abuse. This FFF NJ’s sticker stood up to a reasonable amount of bending, so in most cases you should be fine. The holos are visible and well detailed. The “Chief Administrator” signature is up to date for the Early 2019 issue date of this ID.
Only things I feel a need to bring up: The License number begins with a different letter then the holder’s last name. According to a generator, a barbook, and the NJ state website, this is incorrect. The signature also appears to be a little thicker than most, but as with all things signature, thickness is variable on real IDs for a number of reasons. According to everything online, the change of address space has been removed in favor of online forms, so the omission there is correct. This FFF NJ also lacks a back lam, but this detail is on the website and should not be noticed out of state. One less sticker to get fucked up is the way I look at it, but also something to keep in mind for strict use in state or near NJ.

Where this ID wins most of its brownie points (And sadly the thing that’s hardest for me to show you) is in the Photoshop department. The photo makes or breaks IDs and to that end so does the photo shop (Or lack thereof) This FFF NJ has some of the most generous ear shadows I’ve seen in a while, and it sells the ID pretty well. Too often ear shadows are toned down, and unless the person has hair covering them, most physicals I see regardless of the state have really pronounced ear shadows, so this is plus in my book. A “filter” type modification was made to the photo, I’ve heard FFF calling this a halftone effect, so I’ll just go with that. It was done nicely and looks very natural. The cut out is also very clean, I saw another review claiming it was botched however judging by this ID sending in a normal photo should result in a Photoshop job free of such errors- as always- there is only so much Photoshop can fix.

With that covered, this leaves scanning and the UV layer. The barcode issues with this ID appeared to be limited to the actual inputted data from RTP, and not the formatting. If that has been cleared up, there should be nothing to worry about as it passed BCS, BarZapp and an infrared scanner at Home Depot just fine. The UV ink however was a weak point. I should note that many states have very weak UV ink while the fakes will always light up Christmas tree style, and NJ appears to be one of them. All that being said, this wasn’t really doing it for me. Under both a 365nm and 395nm lights, the “New Jersey” text was hard to read at all angles, with the state outline being far more visible. While I’m not saying it is unreasonable for a $25 dollar ID, or that it should light up like a Christmas tree, it could use some more juice (possibly to compensate for whatever dulling the sticker is doing?)

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So wrapping it all up: This is a great starter ID, especially for the east coast, that won’t break your bank and will get you in the door most places. Would like to see some adjustment to that UV layer and the DL generation, but other than that this a good ID, but I think FFF is moving in the right direction by releasing other states. It feels silly recommending an NJ from any vendor given how old the ID is, and makes it difficult to accommodate certain orders. This is still one of the cheapest ways on the forum for one U21 guy/gal to get drunk, so it does earn a recommendation, because it fills an important price niche for small orders.