Or just reproducing it and selling it on the basis that it works exactly the same way as the original...

I'm slightly mystified at the sums collectors items sell for. It seems intuitive to me that their prices should be some function of their inherent values, however that's calculated. It could even be many times that number but it should at least be tethered to reality.

At this point they’re like art or exotic and rare cars - appreciating because of their historical impact.

Obviously the original Mona Lisa is worth a bit more than a good copy.

>For that amount of money it’s incredible we aren’t seeing fakes…

I suspect we are.

I previously asked about how hard it would be to create a forgery and got a nice answer here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29173562#29175946

TLDR: it would be very hard, perhaps next to impossible to create one, and then you'd still have the issue how to convince people it's real, given that the existing ones are pretty well documented and accounted for.