Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/72

 not a prophet in his own country! A few shillings, with luck, may procure a proof steel engraving after Turner. Half a sovereign will buy a couple of French etchings by Maxime Lalanne or by Paul Rajon. Half a crown will make a couple of excellent aquatints change owners. Five shillings may bring one a small mezzotint by a little-known engraver—Bromley or Dawe. As for stipple engravings, they may be bought by the score, ruthlessly torn from the European Magazine or some similar volume by some bookseller's vandal hands. You may get a copper engraving by Caroline Watson for a few pence. Lithographs by little-known men are easily picked up for less than a shilling apiece. All these are excellent as a beginning. In the early stages it is not necessary for the beginner to pay more than half a crown for any single print.

By this time the reader will have arrived at the conclusion that old prints are cheaper than modern photogravures. It is a simple conclusion. The old hand at furniture-buying well knows that he can buy a contemporary chair, made by some local cabinet-*maker in the Chippendale style, cheaper than a modern imitation, and better made too, than can be bought in Tottenham Court Road at five times the money. Looked at all round, it is an absurdity to know that one may procure a very worthy specimen of old engraving at the same cost as a Christmas card with its flaunting vulgarity of design and accompaniment of silk ribbon.

As a warning, it should be boldly stated that there is nothing so deceptive as print collecting. The