Posted by Noel Chiappa (98.166.150.186) on February 27, 2010 at 22:53:38:
In Reply to: Hiroshige print posted by Sophie Haesler on February 27, 2010 at 17:12:47:
As you may know, this series (the Hoeidō Tōkaidō) was originally printed in tremendous numbers, due to its popularity - I seem to recall estimates of up to 30,000 copies of each print. So of course, with the use of wooden blocks, later printings are not as crisp as the earlier ones. Also, with the later printings, sometimes they leave out some blocks, or various printing effects, etc.
However, that is not the cause of the "background landscape behind the mountain has completely disappeared and the mountain base appears which is not the case on the originals" - because I don't see that when I compare your print to another copy of this print in the Tokai Bank catalog of this series. In other words, your print looks pretty well identical! There are some light red-brown clouds in the one in the Tokai catalog which I don't see on yours, but they might have faded a fair amount in your print - which is not in great shape. (I think you can see a thin strip of the cloud colour along the top, where it might have been covered - and thus protected from light - by a mat.)
I can't see a _great_ deal of detail in that image, but from what I can see I would say that this is _likely_ (but not certain - more would be needed to make that judgement) from the original blocks. However, it is (as mentioned) in not very good shape - it's quite dirty, and fairly faded. It also seems that it has been trimmed a fair amount.
Due to all the condition issues, I would say that this print is almost certainly worth only a moderately small fraction of the value of a high-quality one of this scene.
I hope this is useful. Please let us know if we can answer any other questions.