The invention relates to a method and a device for identifying forged value documents, for example composed forgeries consisting of parts of different value documents. According to the method, a characteristic of a first feature of the value document to be verified is determined in a first step and a characteristic of a second feature of the value document to be verified is determined in a second step. In an additional step, the characteristics of both features are compared and the difference is determined. Alternatively, in the additional step an anticipated characteristic for the second feature is compared to the characteristic of the second feature and the difference is determined. Verification then takes place as to whether the determined difference lies in a predetermined value range that contains target values which are defined as acceptable for said difference.
