Welcome Rich! The more the merrier!
Yes, the black plastic cases are definitely well known as replicas. I personally find them to be of a high quality though. Yeah, you can tell it's plastic, but they seem well-made, and look good in my opinion. I'v only ever seen the wooden cases in pictures at auction, but I'm guessing these are of good quality, similar to the wooden cases of earlier medals, but I don't own one, so not sure. I simply can't imagine the original originals didn't come with some sort of case, like Paul suggested, most likely paste board, but I would love to really know! Somebody out there must have this information.