Currier & Ives prints

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Posted By: jamie

I just picked up a couple of Currier & Ives prints depicting the famous Elysian fields match at Hoboken and an interesting one depicting Lincoln as a ball player in a satirical cartoon. I was able to find a copy of it online:



My question is how do I determine the age of these prints? They look to be cut from a book- each has a "Plate #" at the bottom of the page but there's no other information on them.

I bought them to frame but would love to know a little more about them.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Currier & Ives were reprinted as early as before WWII. So it is possible to have an "old reprint" for one. If you got your print for $5 and it looks like it came from a book, it would seem likely it's a reprint.

Many famous 1800s commercial artists, like John James Audubon and Currier & Ives, used specific paper sizes for their prints, so many reprints can be identified because they are irregular in size In fact Audubon's large sized original prints, which can sell for upwards of $100,000, can only be found in one size if untrimmed.

Being off topic, if someone wishes to see how easy it is to authenticate a thousands dollar Audubon see http://www.cycleback.com/qanda.html