Yet it would not be a kindness to hold out to the novice the hope that, with the expenditure of a few shillings, he can form an important collection. Such a hope is a mistaken one. Great discretion is necessary to obtain at a moderate price prints worth having at all. The cheap prints are generally either the late and crude ones, or the badly damaged ones. Both of these classes lack the one _raison d'être_ of collecting--beauty. It is true that, as I have said, a really fine Hiroshige may still sometimes be picked up for a song, but such opportunities are rare; they must be waited for a long time, and must be seized with instant determination when they come. The collector who is not well informed is more than likely to find, after a short period of triumph over his bargain, that his copy is a late and poor impression, and that even the beauty of composition will not permanently satisfy him in the absence of fine and appropriate printing. In this connection it should be remembered that while the finest prints are generally more valuable than their cost, the second-rate prints are generally worth nothing whatsoever. If one has adequate experience, one can well hunt for these opportunities of which I speak. Or if one is unable to pay the normal prices for fine works, one is obliged to lie in wait for them. The average collector will, however, find that in the course of years he gains more by paying normal prices to high-class dealers for the best prints than by seeking in the byways for dubious bargains of speculative quality.