Excerpt from The ABC About Collecting A word in the ear of the people who "would like to collect if they knew anything at all about it," as the say. Listen. Seven dealers out of every ten know next to nothing about it now, and knew nothing at all about it when they began! This is an admitted fact, as a rule; the dealers themselves would confess it to you freely. Collecting is an art, not a business. And the average dealer knows rather less about any one "line" than does the average amateur. Dealers learn what they know from their customers; they have said so again and again. "I should very much like to collect old prints - coins, and medals - Georgian furniture," say Mr. Brown, Mr. Jones, Mr. Robinson. "I should like to fill the drawing-room cabinet with good old china," say unanimously their respective wives. "But we don't know how," they go on, with one voice - "it would cost a fortune - the dealers would rook us!" My dear Mr. and Mrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson, I assure you, nothing of the sort. "It must be so difficult to become a judge!" you say. Oh, no! Nothing is easier and pleasanter than to learn when one hankers to learn. Besides, one learns in bits: one learns to collect by collecting. "But the real things cost so much!" Do they? People have to buy furniture and mantelpiece ornaments of one kind or another, and it is still a fact that you can buy fine old china for less than the price of china that is fine and new. A roomful of good old furniture, picked up a piece at a time, will cost you less than a roomful of furniture that is both new and as good. And the old things are much the more comfortable to live with. "But surely all the real bargains have been picked up long ago," says the doubter. Dear would-be amateur, bargains go begging in by-streets nearly every day! "But even bargains cost you a lot, to begin with," says the doubter. Do they? Listen again. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.