It is easy to understand how old drawings and sketches may be imitated. Just as in the case of faking a painting, the artist tries first to become familiar with the work he wishes to imitate. It is then usually executed on old paper and when finished soaked in dirty water, dried and scoured with pumice to give it the apparent abuse of age. Some imitators, however, do not give themselves the trouble to find the proper paper, and it is not unusual to see imitations on modern paper, or would-be sixteenth-century, work on paper bearing the mill-mark of two or three centuries later. But these of course are the gross imitations only intended to dupe the most naïve of beginners. Prints are also imitated, and nowadays to perfection with the help of mechanical aids, when they have to reproduce an excellent original. The ageing process is the same as that used for drawings. There is one difference between them to be noted, it is that in the case of old prints or etchings the presence or absence of the margin counts for much. An etching with its original paper margin is far more valuable than one that has been cut to fit a frame or for any other purpose. Hence one particular branch of faking of the prints is to refurnish paper margins to those specimens that have lost them. The work is more or less successful according to the skill of the faker, but is usually effected in the following manner: The etching is cut all round the edge reasonably near the printed part, then a large piece of old paper is cut to fit the etching as a frame and the two edges are brought and held together for some time by a paper lining at the back. The crack of the join between the old etching and the new margin is filled in with paste of the same composition as the paper and smoothed even by a mechanical process. It is of course needless to add that such a method is not likely to take in a true collector, but the faker knows that foolish clients are sometimes numerous and his best supporters. Miniature work is easy to imitate, not only on account of its technique, in which originality has a comparatively small rôle to play, but because it needs hardly any patina or ageing. Pastels and water colours, more especially the latter, appear to be a little out of the forger’s line. Yet pastel, with its peculiar technique, affords possibilities for faking. Copies of noted originals have not escaped the speculative spirit of the counterfeiter. They are generally sold as contemporary copies or antique copies, and they seem to command higher prices, even if an old copy is at times far inferior to a modern one. In the faking of modern, or semi-modern art, the technique intended to confer age and venerability to the work finds no place. In such cases, it is easy to understand, the main craft lies in imitating the style of the master counterfeited.