An antique print (usually a book plate) can be defined by which it is created or produced in a former period, or, according to U.S. customs laws, 100 years before date of purchase.   These prints are created by skilled craftsmen and engravers working together with artists of time. 

 

The first printing technique was relief, using carved wooden blocks to create woodcut prints.  This was difficult and not very accurate.  Copper plate engraving in intaglio (i.e. engraving into the surface, rather than relief) proved much more efficient.  From 1820 steel plates were used.  Being a harder metal, they did not wear out so quickly. 

 

Antique prints can generally be divided into two classes: those made from metal printing plates and those made from stones.  From metal plates we get engravings, etchings, aquatint, and mezzotints.  Most of these will show a tell-tale indentation in the paper outlining the plate.  From stones we get lithographs.  All of these may be finished by hand with watercolour.  The entire process was a very tedious and time-consuming one.  Consequently, the resulting prints were expensive in their day and are rare and valuable in ours.  Some prints, like old master prints, were done solely as works of art.  Most were done to be sold to the scientific and public community as informative supplements to books and articles.  In fact, most of antique prints available to today's public were book plates.  Though originally created for informative needs, have tended to become art over hundreds of years because so much time, skill and artistic talent went into the making of each print.

 

For displaying, antique prints should be custom framed using archival materials such as acid-free mat boards and UV light blocking glass to protect them from further discolouration and fading.