How do you know if your antique print or old map is the real thing? It may look old to you, but is it? You may have been wondering if it were real for a long time. Was it made over a hundred years ago or a hundred days ago? If your print is an antique, you are probably wondering if it is worth a lot of money. You hope that you have hit the jackpot and that this old piece of paper you have is going to bring you in a pot of gold.
In reality most prints are not worth much, but what if you got rid of it and it was actually worth a couple of hundred or even a couple of thousand dollars. You would feel awful, so just in case, you think you should keep this print and you store it away.
We have encountered plenty of lifetime collections of prints inherited by families hoping to have a fortune worth of art on their hands. Often when told the current value of the collection they feel disappointed if it does not fulfill their expectations. The program Antique Road show is much to blame in this trend. Most people shown on Antique Road show are the exciting ones, the ones that have a nice piece worth talking about on the show. It has been rare of late for my wife and I to surprise people with a higher than expected value for their prints because of the success of this television program. Everybody expects to have a rare find worth a lot of money.
The truth of the matter is that there are many reproductions out there and people mistake them for originals. In order to help you avoid the pain of disappointment there is an easy way to determine the age of your print or old map. Get yourself a magnifying glass and look closely at a small section of your print.
If you see a multitude of even dots making the color or shades of your print then you are holding in your hands a print made within the last 100 years and by definition if it is less than a hundred years then it is not an antique. The dots must be regular and even, with a systematic repetition.
Anything other than this will most likely be over a hundred years old and therefore be a genuine antique. Do keep in mind that some printing methods like the stipple engraving and some tools used in traditional lithography show small dots under a magnifying glass, but these dots will be irregular in shape and form. The pattern of the dots will not be uniform.
This is your best way to determine if your print is an original antique print or antique map. As an antique your print may be worth some money, in which case we suggest you bring it to an appraiser to be valued.
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