Collectors of fine colour engrave ings awoke to the beauty of the early prints before the presses of the licensees had finished turning: out the mediocre productions which marked the end of the process. One or two books and several magazine articles were written on Baxter and his colour prints in the years which followed his death in great property, and then Mr. Courtney Lewis, an enthusiastic collector with an attractive literary style wrote a very alluring book to anyone bitten with the collecting fever. It caught on and he has since written several others, and edited several Annuals for Baxter collectors. There is now a com siderable library devoted to the subject "and a quarterly magazine. Ten years ago Mr. Lewis' said that Baxter prints would be a good investment. Many book and print dealers deride ed the idea, but there are scores of Baxter prints to-day that fetch as many pounds as they did shillings when the prophecy was made. A complete collection is now worth a fortune and there are several prints which cannot be bought for less than £150 each. But all that some collectors have to show for a total expenditure of over a hundred pounds on their queer hobby, is a cigar box half full of tawdry little pictures that in art and printing could be bettered any time by the purchase of a half crown box of Christmas cards.
The easiest way of becoming infected by the Baxter collecting microbe is inexpensively to acquire 2 specimen without knowing at the time what a treasure you have got. Some sophisticated visitor is sure to say soon after "Why that's a Baxter.' You may then sell it at a magnificent profit or decide to keep it, because, if it is worth all that to the other fellow there is no reason why it should not be worth it to you. In any case you are' lost. You will investigate the subject and fud the prices are going up. After that you will haunt old furniture shops looking' for Baxters and not finding them. Dealers will offer you worn im pressions at great reductions on the catalogued prices. You will be ambitious to obtain a collection and in a few months will yourself help to force the market prices up by bidding for new specimens.
LIVING ON BAXTERS ALONE, Some of the antique dealers are making such a good thing out of it that they can afford to let their usual business down and "live ep Baxters." We know one shop in am out-of-the-way part of a large provincial town where the cracked Toby jugs, and the battered Sheffield plate in the window have not been dusted for years. Scattered about among them, however, thera can be seen a few pictures, several of which are Baxter productions. A few others in hideous Victoriani frames are hung on the walls. In the room behind there is a considerable collection. This is the stock in trade, and the smart motor, car of the owner, and his little place in the country testify to what a one it is. He can "talk Baxters," for hours to the simple collector, and usually convince him that any print he has, and the prospective customer hasn't, will be priceless in a year or two. Each print has an exorbitant price marked on the back, and, "to you sir," will be sold at a considerable reduction.
This dealer can tell strange tales of those collectors who have, as he says, "got it bad." Taking specimens to the private houses of collectors he has several times been violently attacked by infuriated wives who think that he is encouraging a particularly dangerous form of lunacy in their hus bands. He has also been knocked up in the middle of the night by anxious collectors who have been afraid to put off any longer the buying of coveted specimens for fear thai rivals should snap them up_before morning.
Opinion: varies on the question of whether the craze will last. Some dealers profess to believe that before it subsides it will reach proportions equalling the tulip mania in Holland during the 17th century. Unfortunately for them most of Baxter's: plates are still in existence and despite all the' talk about his unique skill in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.