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PRINTS — THEIR USES AND ABUSES
The Object of Collecting Should Be the Cultivation of Understanding
By Charles D. Childs
Accompanying Print Reproduction by Courtesy of Goodspeed's Book Shop

"PRINT" as a term has lost some of its original meaning by the freedom of its application but actually it is an impression from a block, stone, or plate, created by contact with an inked surface upon which a design has been prepared. Fine prints are made by the same methods as all others except that all images done on plates, blocks, or stones must have been actually drawn there by hand, not by mechanical means. The mediums by which such prints are made are etching, engraving, mezzotint, aquatint, and lithography. No reproductive processes enter this field. A photograph, for instance, is not a print as it is manufactured by chemical reaction of light against a sensitive film.

Printed pictures in the western world originated in the Fifteenth Century. Throughout four centuries, they have been of incalculable assistance to the progress of culture and the free transmission of thought from one people to another. With such a background there is an irresistible inducement to acquire and study the records of particular times and phases of this great historical pageant. One commendable desire to collect is that of the student, whose endeavor is directed toward the broadening of his knowledge. But to the layman, the act of searching out and acquiring fine things, whatever they may be, is always made enticing by the knowledge that others are quite as eager and as quick to get wind of a find. Collecting as a game has some of the flavor of hide-and-seek. Certainly diligent search is well rewarded and many hidden things have been brought to  light by the persistence of the players.

Few of us are immune to the pleasures that lie in owning something desired by others. As children our acquisitiveness centered upon things of immediate interest, marbles, tops, and those possessions which were considered by general agreement to be of paramount importance. The adult mind is sometimes loathe to surrender all remembrance of its youthful indulgences and retention of early interests is no doubt responsible for many mature excursions into the realms of pirates, Indians, cowboys, aviators, and mariners. Many of us, indeed, find our zest in

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LINE ENGRAVING — "LITTLE HORSE" BY DÜRER, 1505

EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY AQUATINT — ENGLISH ANGLING SCENE

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