Only a handful of notable games have been reproduced, and pretty much openly and well-publicized, like Schylling's 2007 repro of the 1920s Frantz/Hustler game in Jay's post above (they redid the similar Great American baseball game as well). The only really pricey baseball game to beware of as a repro is the 1884 Lawson's card game, republished by a legitimate Australian outfit in 2006.
Games are just harder and more expensive to fake than cards or autographs, and with relatively few notable exceptions don't command the same kind of money from collectors, so it's generally not worth the effort on the part of scammers.
Just the slightest bit of experience and/or research should enable most people to distinguish original games from reproductions. The Schylling repros (they also redid the circa 1960 Marx Baseball Game tabletop pinball) and the Lawson's repro are nearly identical to the originals, but they're all clearly marked with the new manufacturer's name. Other repros include obvious miniaturized versions in tin "collector" boxes, like Channel Craft's 2000s version of McLoughlin Brothers' circa 1900 Home Base Ball Game, and repros with significant and obvious changes to the graphics, like Sports Game Publishing's 2003 reissue of the 1930 National Pastime. The only repro that seems indistinguishable from the original is Harry's Grand Slam Baseball Game, originally produced in 1962 by Olympic Card Company, and redone in every exact detail by Heirloom Games / Out Of The Box Publishing in 2005. But even the original Harry's was typically only about a $10. item.
There have been a few attempts at peddling outright fakes, as distinguished from commercial reproductions, but those have been rare. All (we've counted three) were obvious -- all were cheaply produced gameboards, all shared some graphics in common, and all were quite clumsily executed, so our guess is that they were done as a middle-school art project, got away in a yard sale, and were being sold naively by honest and unsuspecting eBay vendors.
If you're eyeing a game and need some insight on whether or not it's an original, ask us here or visit our own Forum!
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