This seems strange to me. In Western culture, I've always seen the higher quality copies valued more. Value of cultural artifacts like this usually depends on rarity, and the degraded copies are more common, so why would they be more valuable?
Imagine a painting which is locked away from everyone in order to help preserve it. Someone then shows up and creates a replica, and they share it with the world. Which one is more valuable?
It is similar to antique furnitures being made to look old and crappy
It's more because of this