How many impressions were made of one print?
The number of impressions was dependent on the status of a print (privately published or commercially published), on the genre and subject, on the demand and of course also on the wear of the woodblocks. Generally the first edition of a Japanese print numbered about one hundred and fifty to two hundred impressions. Special editions commissioned by select groups of poets, kabuki-fans, etcetera, might have been limited to a smaller number of impressions. After printing the first edition of a commercially published Japanese print, additional ones were kept in line with the demand. With an increasing number of editions the quality of the impressions gradually diminished. Among other things these later impressions show wear of the blocks, poor registration, coarsely printed patterns and sparse use of bokashi, or no bokashi at all. Also, often the number of colour blocks was reduced and refined printing techniques were absent. Of many prints at least a few hundred excellent impressions have
