Page:Chats on old prints (IA chatsonoldprints00haydiala).pdf/75

 beginner should go warily and arm himself with facts. Printsellers may be deceived as to values. There was an eccentric old dealer near the British Museum well known to collectors. He really had nothing of any great worth, but he had come to believe that all his prints had a phenomenal value, and it was with difficulty that anybody could procure even an ordinary specimen from him. He realised the fact that engraving was fast becoming, or indeed almost is, a lost art. He fixed his prices at a figure which will be realised ten years hence. He was regarded as a madman by his customers. He was really only a quarter of a century in advance of his time.

It is impossible to foretell what to-morrow's prices may be, but it is safe to prophesy that they will be ten times what they are now in as many years. The writer's advice to the young collector is: Make haste slowly. Learn what to reject. Know your subject, and buy as far as possible the best of everything. After the first stages when the glorious profusion is bewildering to the novice, he will begin to realise that his own specimens are somewhat lacking in quality, and he will burn to acquire proofs on india-paper. They are not, in engravings on steel, uncommon nowadays. Discard dirty and torn prints unless they happen to be rare, when half a loaf is better than none. Compare good impressions with bad ones, and the difference must appeal even to the beginner. Know something about all, but endeavour to know all about something. The special subject, whether it be as extensive as the etchings of