The letter lacked a ring of authenticity that would settle her doubts.
1878, Hertfordshire Mercury:
[…]but newspaper readers now-a-days are pretty well able to discriminate between items of news that have the true ring of authenticity about them...
1962, Margaret Laurence, “Ring of authenticity”, in Canadian Literature[1]:
The inner workings of government, of newspapers, of the law, and even of merchant ships and the dockside — these details have the ring of authenticity.
2004, Craig A. Evans, The Historical Jesus, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 7:
Certainly there is no part of the Gospel record which has for the reader a clearer ring of authenticity.
