Damaged paper wallet recovery (WIF import string)
Old paper wallets often fail import because some Base58 characters became unreadable, mis-scanned, or copied with visual ambiguity.
Common failure patterns
- Smudged ink or torn corners around several WIF symbols.
- Camera glare and blur causing OCR substitutions.
- Checksum failure after manual retype from paper.
How to improve recovery input
- Provide best-quality photo plus raw OCR output (if used).
- Mark uncertain character positions explicitly in mask form.
- Share whether any public key/address pair is confirmed from that backup.
Important safety note
Never publish full private key material in chats or public threads. For first review, share only a masked WIF and context.