This heading covers original engravings, prints and lithographs (whether ancient or modern), i.e., impressions produced directly, in black and white or in colour, from one or several plates wholly executed by hand by the artist, irrespective of the process or of the material employed by him, but excluding any mechanical or photomechanical process (see Note 2 to this Chapter).
Provided, they satisfy the other conditions of the preceding paragraph, the heading includes, as original works, lithographs executed by the transfer technique (in which the lithographic artist first makes his drawing on a special paper and then transfers the design to the stone). The impressions as defined above are produced from engraved plates which may have been executed by various processes, e.g., line-engraving, dry-point, aquatint (acid process) or stipple-engraving. Original impressions remain in this heading even if they have been retouched. It is often difficult to distinguish the original article from the copy, fake or reproduction, but the relatively small number of impressions and the quality of the paper may be useful guides in determining originals; on the other hand, evidence of the use of half-tone screens (in photogravure and heliogravure) and, very often, the absence of the mark left on the paper by the plate, may indicate a copy or a reproduction. Frames around engravings, prints or lithographs are to be classified with those articles in this heading, only if they are of a kind and of a value normal to those articles; in other cases the frames are to be classified separately in their appropriate headings as articles of wood, metal, etc. (see Note 5 to this Chapter). It should be noted that the heading excludes the plates (in copper, zinc, stone, wood or any other material) from which engravings, etc., are made (heading 84.42).
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