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davidcyclebackThe essential problem for collectors is not that the original Fro Joys were made is some unusual manner, but that the average collector has never seen one in person and they are rarely offered for sale online. If a collector had a stash of 20 original it would be easy to identify real ones and you'd simply compre the questioned card to your cards. Duly note that there are 1928 Gene Tunney (boxing) Fro Joy cards that I do not beleive were reprinted in the same manner, so it is possible for a collector to purchase a real Fro Joy card, both for collecting and comparison purposes.
Unlike Fro Joys, real T206s and 1952 Topps are readily available so the average collector can lean what the real cards look and feel like. Even if you've never owned a T206 there so many real ones offered online that you can identify many fakes simply by comparing online images. Since T206s and 1952 Topps are in bright colors, reprinting is more obvious. With a black and white Fro Joy it's harder to tell what is a bad card and what is a bad scan, especially if you've never seen one in person.
One of the best and most practical ways for the average collector to identify reprints to to compare a questioned cards to known authentic cards from the same issue. You may not own a duplicate 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, but you can compare the Mantle you just bought to 1952 Topps commons. You may not already own a 1986-7 Fleer Michael Jordan for comparison, but you can get a small pile of commons for cheap. In almost all cases, reprints and counterfeits will be significantly and obviously different than real cards from the issue when compared in person(thickness, gloss, etc). This is why people often say that before you buy your first 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth, purchase a few low grade commons so you can learn what the real Goudeys look like. And this explains why the Fro Joys are a toughie for collectors, as it's hard enough to get the first comparison card, much less the second card. For the average collecor, authenticating Fro Joys is like what was said about the NFL: "Do you know why it's so hard to win consecutive Superbowls? Because it's so hard to the first one."
People who really know what they are doing can authenticate cards without a comparison card. For example, you can put a suspect Fro Joy or newly discovered issue under a strong microscope and accurately judge it's age. You do this in part by identifying the type of printing used to make the card. Early baseball cards were made with printing processes and inks that are no longer used and can be identified. Under a microscope, the printing type and age is identified by a distinct printing and ink pattern. Old photographs are are authenticated in a similar way. By putting a $20,000 1870 baseball cabinet under the microscope, you are seeing if it was made with the correct photographic process for the period, a processes which hasn't been used commercially for over 100 years ... This scientific examination is not used instead of normal collector's judgment and knowledge of cards and photographs, but in addition to. If that 1870 cabinet looks good in comparison to other cabinets you handled from the period and appears to come from a legitimate source, that the microscope shows that the photographic process used to make the cabinet is period should seal the deal.
As an example of microscopy, below is a microscopic picture of the edge of a printed letter. The pattern reveals what type of printing was used.
Notice the the little dust-like grains of black that surrounds the edge of the letter? This shows that the letter was printed with either a photocopier or laserprinter (like you might have at home). Photocopiers and laserprinters do not use ink, but a dust-like pigment that is magnetically attracted to the desired design (letters, image). The pigment is fused (melted) to the paper, but not all of the dust-like pigment reaches the desitination before being fused. This means that a photocopy or laserprint will have this dustiness as shown here under the microscope. Even if you've never seen before a real 1914 Cracker Jack Christy Mathewson, you don't have to be Keith Olbermann and his television staff to deduce that a real Cracker Jack wasn't made with a color laserprinter. The technology wasn't invented until long after Mathewson was dead.
Most to all big auction houses and graders, Sotheby's to PSA, depend on their hands on experience and do not use microsopic techniques like this. Having bought and sold millions of dollars worth of cards, folks like Bill Mastro, Lew Lipset and Rob Lifson's hands on experience is vast and deap. But as PSA and SGC not grading Fro Joys show, personal experience has it's limits, and there will be legitimate material you can't authenticate.