the london press ... 1900

early catalogers of stamps were Moens of Belge , Fournier of Berne, Torres of Spain, and Maeda and Wada of Japan.   the facsimile makers were all "cast from the temple of philately"  by various society leaders.   and a deluge of reports followed :  "the spud papers"  .  

further, early collectors had difficulty finding foreign mail issues, so facsimile albums and catalogs filled the gap.   they were pioneers of philately...  

...  as shown, the main competition that maeda and wada faced, was the IJP itself releasing remainder sheets @ 15% of face value.   so who had the lower cost of production ?            as packet demand increased,  so did supplies of used genuine and fake items...

london CV 1900

note the evaluation reflects currency exchange, rather than scarcity value.   the 50sen costs more than a 45sen.