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Hi Sharyn: Ok let’s take it a few things at a time.
First what Jay says is true. To pay for an appraisal or evaluation it would be costly.
Next, this looks like a manuscript page from a book of some sort. Next if this is a plate pulled engraving there should a demarcation impression of where the plate was pressed into the paper. An engraving is usually inked intaglio, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intaglio_(printmaking) , which means ink pushed down into the grooves of a etched plate, then excess ink wiped off lightly from the surface and then run through an etching type of pressure press which squeezes the plate and paper together and that action transfers the ink out from down inside the groves out and onto the paper. This whole process requires downward pressure this in turn embeds the plate into the paper and leaves a recessed border around the edge of the image. So, from your photos, I can’t see that embossed edge. BUT it could be hidden under the edge of the mat.
Next you should look closely with a loupe, linen tester [I recommend everyone get one of these] or magnifier at 10x power or above 20x better. Much more than that will start to distort what you are seeing. We use 6x, 10x, 20x, 30x and a 100x microscope but for various paper inspection needs.
But that being said, now look at the lines themselves. You are looking to see if the lines have any structural dimension to them. Are they slightly raised up and off the surface? Use a strong light from the side [angled] to see if the lines cast a shadow opposite of the light. If they are raised [embossed up] and have shadows it is a good chance it is a true engraved item, etched down into a plate, inked intaglio style and printed under pressure to transfer the ink. The proper method.
So, what you are now looking for is if the ink is laying flat on the surface. [RELIEF INKING.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_printing This Wiki Links also show diagrams that are useful in understanding both of these inking processes]
If you can’t see if the lines are “solid and raised” then next look to see if you can see any small round dots of any kind. That would indicate a half tone reproduction of an original. But halftone screens are usually only used to create variations of grays along with solid black areas and lines in a reproduction. in high contrast graphic photography, line work without any shading can be reproduced without halftone dots.In true etching the variations of grays are created by a process called “cross hatching”. The scribing of various thickness of lines and the variation of spacing in-between them to create and fool the eye into thinking it is seeing gray. Use of parallel lines and perpendicular diagonal lines are used to create variations within solid gray like areas. So again, take your loupe and examine.
Next is to look for ink density. If under magnification look to see if the ink lines look very solid and a dark, heavy black. If the ink looks thin, transparent, especially in any of the larger solid areas, then this may indicate the plate was inked “relief” and not “intaglio”. Relief inking would be where the ink is applied across the plate and applied to all the “raised areas” not down into the deeper grooves of the plate. This is modern process of offset lithography, lino cuts, wood cuts and especially photo reproduction done on plates. Just like a rubber stamp, ink is “rolled” across the plate and the plate when press down onto the paper or run through a high-speed press will “transfer” that ink from solid high surface to high solid surface. You will not see any raised characteristics to the ink, no shadows from the ink presence, not embossed plate borders into the paper. Very low pressure is used. The ink layer will be very thin, and transparent. Most blacks will be more like dark grays.
Next the “type” Words and letters can be produced by both methods. Look to see if you see an absorption of ink into the white areas around the stem of the letters. Heavy, fluid ink will show under 20x power a slight “bleeding” of the ink into the paper stock [depending on the type of paper]. This looks like a slight raggedness around the edges. This indicates, an intaglio inked plate whereby a heavier amount of ink was “squeezed” into the paper surface. If the line structure is thin, sharp, crisp, then possibly an offset ink done from the flat top plate surface and transferred from a planographic flat surface to a flat surface. This is one of the reason it is the modern choice of printers because of the ability to produce extremely fine lines and dots [of course].
Lastly, if you can disassemble the piece and get it out of the frame and out from under glass it will much easier to examine it for the above characteristics. If you can you will also be able to examine the paper type and the paper edge. If you can and are interested, let me know2 and I will post for what to be looking for with regards to paper type, paper weight, edge construction, registration [alignment] methods, damage [foxing, mold, stains] and possible if it came out of a book and was bound into a book. But that is a whole other post for all of that.
Sources for hands on evaluation would be of course a local museum, a good high-end framing shop [especially if a member of the Picture Framers Guild of America], an art school print making instructor and of course a paid art appraiser or antique shop specializing in Fine Art Prints.
Hopefully this has helped you with this piece and armed you for the future evaluation of what you may be looking at and if you have something that is worth a higher investment into a piece for your inventory.
Respectfully Submitted and Kindest Regards,
Mike at MDC Fine Art Galleries in Atlanta
Here is an interesting twist. Being an artist and also knowing of others, I would prefer to have a watermark somewhere on my own work. With today’s digital technology anybody can copy an image then have a Giclee’ printed out of the same image. People are also known to copy images, enlarge them way up, then crop out a center section and then reproduce that as an original print and sell that Giclee [digital print] as their own “abstract art” print.
The watermark doesn’t stop this of course because with photoshop almost any good artist can obliterate pixel by pixel and embedded image but it certainly creates somewhat of a barrier of protection. Original artwork is copyrighted as soon as the original artist creates it and when sold does not give the new owner any right to reproduce that image in any way at all, even in a catalog.
There is so little protection in the way of copyright infringement for artists and especially on Ebay. There are tons of violations all over Ebay and it has been written about tons of times. Ebay does nothing to prevent this type of infringement and copyright violation and this is just another step in stripping away that right of artists to protect their work.
Here is something to think about, has anyone here on SL ever written to an artist or their estate and asked for permission to photograph their art work because you want to resell it. Of course not, and most artist can’t even be found or reached even if you did want to contact them, but according to copyright law, you have no legal right to make or hold that digital image.
Thought I would just share maybe another side of the coin that some don’t think about.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
That is just unbelievable. I can only image that you sell all day with a constant “cha-ching” ringing in your ears, then stay up all night packing and shipping. That’s got to be some serious “volume” packing, even though you have it down to a science.
Congratulations…
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Yep, Jay is spot on. A JOKE!.. And I laughed when I saw the question.
It has been a bug [Hum an issue according to Ebay] for years and Ebay has several of those [issues] floating around, and after so many calls, by so many members, reporting the same “no results”, it just becomes a “No Harm, No Foul” joke. The standard answer from Ebay is, “it is a known issue and engineering is aware of it, just wait and it will eventually drop off”. If you want to sit and wait for a rep to tell you the same thing in a half foreign language, you can barely understand, then have at it, if not consider yourself now one of the initiated and informed. LOL 🙂
Just watch your bill and you will “eventually” see your FVF credited back to you, but don’t ask when but it does eventually. Welcome to our world.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Hi Mayberry mom:
You may be refering to Todd Alexander who made the video at this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6znSUKtKH0
He gave this seminar at the Australian Ebay Conference in 2013 and he was an engineer that worked on the Cassini Search Engine project and Algorithm.
A year or so ago several of the mebers had a fairly long discussion of this video and the contents and how the information was contrasted to the SL “List and Forget” approach. The final out come was that some of the SL members do end listings and refresh them very often. Some don’t have the time or bulk editing tools to do so quickly and do not.
It was a long thread lasting I think several days or weeks. You can maybe use the search field-box here and put in search terms to find and read many of the posts I and others contributed to those discussions. Also click on the above link and listen to what the guy has to say and remember he worked for Ebay on Cassini, so I would think he sort of knows a thing or two, Maybe? It is very informative listening even though it is now about 4 years old, some things may still be relevant. Reading the comments here on SL also helps in learning how Ebay Cassini works and how many of the SL members treat our listings. Some based on fact some based on spooky voodoo beliefs. [LOL :-)]
Hope that was what you were looking for.
Mike at MDC galleries in Atlanta
Ryanne is correct. It is an Arabic Turkish Bedouin coffee set. Seems to look similiar to this one.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/arabic-bedouin-mother-pearl-coffee-pc-200399524
This set sold for $88 in 2011. So research on those keywords and see what you come up with.Some say coffee set, some say wine service set, etc.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Ok: Time for an update and new round of questions.
We finally got around to proceeding with cross listing some of our Ebay inventory in our Etsy store. We have 890 items in our Ebay store and now have 122 of those items also listed in the Etsy store.
We have worked out a fairly quick process of getting the Ebay listing into the Etsy form mainly by just copy and pasting. Actually it is fairly quick. I did 17 of them the other day.
We now have several custom folders created in WonderLister where we will be able to track and handle the separartion of items on both platforms. WonderLister is still working on their cross platform module and we are told that will be coming in a new release in the near future. until then we have just customized WL ourselves to keep things segregated.
OK, now on to the questions for the ScavengerLife Etsy members.
We noticed that as we started to grow the Etsy listings, we started to get our listings and the store “Favorited” by a number of Etsy members. We can also see on the Etsy stats area that the number of views are starting to climb and the graph is climbing upwards. But no sales as of yet, thus “zero” feedbacks and or sales showing. At 122 listings guess it is time for the next step to try to get some “juice” going. What do all of the SL Etsy sellers suggest to do at this step?
* Do we need to start visiting other Etsy stores and “favorite” there store and items?
* Start participating in the discussion forums like we do here at SL?
* Start running Sales, or what?We remember years ago Jay saying that 250 listings was the magic number on Ebay. Is that the case on Etsy. We just need to keep adding items and the more we have then Etsy will start paying some attention? We think there are going to be about 350 to 400 listings +/- that will qualify as “vintage” and suitable for placing on Etsy.
So, would appreciate it for any insight into what all of the SL Etsy sellers started to do to give a kick start to their Etsy stores once they started to accumulate a number of Etsy listings.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Well, one good thing. It is an easy, quick fix. As I mentioned, the newest update has a new command line that says “Remove WonderLister Logo”. Just highlight all the listings, click this command and let it run in the background while you proceed to do more listings. Mine finished like you said in a few seconds per listings and all of our 890 listings were done in a few minutes.
Keep working with WL and you will see that it is great to use a master command overall multi platform software program to handle all of your online e-commerce listing, inventory management, and financial reporting all in one place. T-Satt uses SixBit. Both of these programs do about the same thing, only SB is just a little more costly and according to T.Satt he likes the “look and feel” of the dashboard – platform. I have used both and admit SB “looks” a little slicker visually but both do about the same thing. I belive the biggest difference is SB does have a set-up where you can have several assistants [employee like] persons work remotely away from the database, but it does cost. WL also allows this but the other computers have to be on the same network [i.e. within range] of your main router. In our case about 100 feet away not across town. But there is a work around for that by using TeamViewer.
Good luck on continuing to grow your business and using WL to streamline your admin. infrastructure.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Yep that Wonder Lister Update came out a week ago. I wonder why you did not get a notice of the update from WL. Also WL does a lot of updates. So part of my normal procedure is to usually click on the “Help” tab and check for updates at least twice a week. The updated version cleaned out all of the logo links to WL on all 890 of our listings by using their “Bulk Edit” in about 15 minutes. It did so in the background while I continued to work on other things.
By the way SixBit, Auctiva, InkFrog and others also do the same thing. Auctiva especially with their infamous scrolling gallery widget. I noticed that WL also had a command line to click to get rid of all of the Auctiva inserts.
For T. Satt I would guess SixBit also has had to issue an update to allow you to strip out the SixBit logos. I still had a few SixBit listings with thier logo remaining from the few months I used SixBit. I just opened those listings and stripped the HTML code out manually. That only took a few minutes.I read that some people are having a hard time getting that Auctiva Scrolling Gallery off – out of their listings.
mike in Atlanta
One place to check is if you use any type of third party listing tools like SixBit, Auctiva, InkFrog, Wonder Lister and the old Turbo Lister. Most of these programs insert a small logo [advertising] at the bottom of the listing that you used to create your listing or a template you used. Those logos had a link back to their web sites to try to intice new subscribers. Ebay’s “Active Content Tool” is finding those logos and seeing the back links and then putting those listings on their “you need to remove active content” lists. Also if you did any copy and paste information from other sites outside Ebay, such as Wikipedia, or some specailty site with info about your product, those too contain back links.
In our case we use WonderLister and WL just recently released a new revision that stripped out all of the WL logos in all of our listings. We went from approx. 750 warnings, down to about 6. Then I find those pretty easy by opening my descriptions on those. Also if you know any HTML you can look in the code and find some links.
Also you will have to scan and see if you have any links to a photo that is outside of Ebay. Such as a link to Photobucket, Imgur, and the such. Those too need to be removed.
Now the next item about to pop up on the scene for this fall, is the non-secure data that you may have copied from sites that is not secure. The old code HTML is now not going to be allowed inside of your descriptions and it all needs to be HTMLS [the new secure coding for all data]. This means if you copied and pasted description information in order to beef up your listings content, that data will most likely be flagged as insecure.
If you use Google Chrome as a browser and any of your customers use Google Chrome [which about 50% of the user do], then Google is going to place a pop up warning that your site listing contains unsecure data. That will kill a bunch of sales for you.
Here is a tool Ebay has partnered with to allow you to run a scan on your store and see if you have any old HTML code and if so will be classified to your customers as an unsecure site if they are using Chrome.
Here is the entire message we got along with the links. Link to i-tool: i-ways tool.If this doesn’t link, then just search for the topic of unsecure Ebay content using Chrome and other browsers.
Good luck on getting things cleaned up.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
This is the email we got couple of days ago: >>>
Starting in October 2017, Google Chrome—the browser used by almost half of all eBay buyers—will begin displaying the message “Not Secure” in the address bar when users visit standard HTTP pages or HTTPS pages that include non-secure HTTP content.You have listings that contain non-secure HTTP content, and we encourage you to revise this content in your listings immediately. If you’re not sure which of your listings contain HTTP content, you can use the i-ways tool to identify them. We have partnered with i-ways to implement an eBay sign-in that protects your full inventory from being available publicly.
What is eBay doing to help?
We believe that the “Not Secure” message may deter buyers from purchasing and impact your conversion rate. To prevent the “Not Secure” message from appearing, we’re changing the desktop buying experience starting this October. Listings that contain or link to HTTP content after that time will have one-click item descriptions—a snippet of the description will be visible, and buyers will have to click to see the full description. The mobile experience will remain unchanged.If you prefer for the full item description to display in your listings, we recommend that you update your HTTP content before October.
Updating listings with HTTP content
Please reference the HTTP page within Seller Center for detailed guidance on how to update your listings.Additionally, eBay has been working with third-party providers to ensure they’re ready for this change. Many of them will provide bulk editing options to revise the HTTP content in your listings. See a list of providers here.
For more information about the specifics of this Google Chrome change, follow this link.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.
The eBay Selling Team
I think the Ebay negotiated price is a discount structure. Like a percentage off of the rates. So, If USPS does up the rates and the Ebay negotiated price discount applies I would assume that it would also mean that Ebay Seller rates would rise proportionately. I don’t see Ebay absorbing any extra costs on behalf of it’s sellers. Increases would be passed along to sellers accordingly.
So one would assume.Thanks T-Satt. Just downloaded PhotoScape and placed in my Graphics Utility folder. We will explore it later when we get a few minutes.
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Thanks for the link Retro T: Just ordered two more of the shelves for us. We currently have 10 shelves, a mix of 8 ft., 6 ft and 48″ wide for a total of approx. 60 running feet currently. Don’t like the 48″ wide as much. Like your suggested sheving because it is 5 ft. [60″ wide]. More to our liking. That will bring us up to 12 shelving units total at approx. 72 running feet x 6 and a few 8 ft. high. That will probably last us for another year or so +/-.
Ordered these on Amazon and it included free shipping for @219 [$109.50 ea.]. That is about what they run at Home Depot but at least I don’t have to lug them out of the store, into the car and home. I agree not too tough to assemble either after you have done a few. We have moved a few times in the past and movers hate the shelves. They all asked waht are you doing with so many shelves?? Funny..LOL.
But thanks for the link. They will arrive Wed.
Mike in Atlanta
Amen to that. Let’s see, you have a two choices. A nice, floral smell or 18 year old sweat smell. Hard to wash shoes, so just “send ’em the stink” 🙂 🙂
Some people will always find something to complain about. We all know that.
mike in Atlanta
