Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/69

 auction-rooms of collections of prints which are dispersed. It is true that the lots comprise a number of engravings, but this ought not to deter the collector from entering into competition with dealers. Before buying the purchaser should visit the auction-room a day or so before the sale, and, armed with a catalogue, carefully examine the lots of prints for sale and determine what he intends to bid for them. He should firmly make up his mind not to exceed this estimate. He need not be greatly perturbed even if they fall to another bidder for a few shillings more than his maximum, because it does not necessarily follow that he would have obtained them for that sum, as his competitor would still have been against him in the bidding.

Hidden away in obscure corners lie the treasures to be discovered by the collector. The china and the furniture collector have hunted up and down England and in many a remote château on the Continent for the "things that are most excellent." It is not likely that a complete set of Whistler's etchings or of Seymour Haden's masterpieces may be found in a wayside cottage. A Plymouth saltcellar or a Chippendale chair may have been thrust away in a lumber-room, but prints never had long life in cottagers' hands. Now and again a fine mezzotint may be espied in inappropriate surroundings. But the peasant, and many a man of better blood too, has a great delight to mount a fine engraving on a canvas stretcher and apply a coat of varnish to it. If it be a delicate colour print, the delight is the greater. The truth is that prints must be sought in more "polite