The ordinary modern reproduction is not difficult to detect. It is generally on a harder, brittler paper than a genuine print. The feeling of the paper between one's fingers is more like that of our wrapping-paper than like that of the old soft papers used by the Ukioye artists. Its surface is compact and glassy, not spongy and pliant. It has a starchy stiffness, and lacks the soft, luminous tone of the genuine. Generally the lines of the block are clumsily cut, lacking the grace and strength of the original; and a careful and minute comparison with an original impression of the same print will invariably show difference in small details of the lines. Even the Japanese are not skilful enough to cut a new block precisely like the old one.
The colours of a reproduction constitute perhaps the most definite danger signal. They are, as a rule, flat and dead, lacking the soft brilliancy of the old colours. Very seldom are they graded with care--a repellent harshness marks them. Particularly does the blue lack the life and depth of the genuine blue; and the red and yellow are likely to be staring.
Freshness and perfect preservation are never, in the absence of other signs, to be regarded as evidence of recent production. Conversely, it is only the merest bungler who regards worm-holes or faded, browned, and damaged condition as any evidence of age. The Japanese use tea-leaves and various other devices to give this time-worn appearance to the most flagrant reproductions. For all I know, they may have trained worms to eat holes. These damaged, tea-soaked prints would be almost worthless even if they were genuine. The stray tourist in Japan, however, customarily accumulates a large number of these soiled tatters, fearing to touch the fresh-looking copies. And the Japanese willingly calm his fears by soaking and soiling their reprints.
There are, however, a few reproductions of so fine a quality that detection is extremely difficult. These are the sheets over which experts shake their heads and go away muttering, to return for councils and deliberations and sometimes total disagreement. There exists in an American collection a certain Kiyonaga print which half a dozen experts believe to be a modern fraud, though another half-dozen are prepared to defend its authenticity until Judgment Day. Work of this quality is expensive to produce, and the price asked for it is therefore always high.