ODANA EDITIONS
A GUIDE FOR THOSE WHO PURCHASE
ON eBAY AND ELSEWHERE

Allan has been keeping a keen watch on eBay and other internet auction sites for sellers trying to pass off various items as genuine Norman Lindsay Facsimile Etchings published by Odana Editions. Furthermore, he is exploring litigation procedures, with the assistance of ebay, for those sellers who are infringing copyright or trade practices laws.

Ebay has already removed one seller’s items for sale. This seller has even gone to the extent of embossing the etching images with a seal in the lower right-hand corner, just as we do.

This is not only an infringement of copyright, but also fraud.

To a lesser extent, there are also sellers advertising pages from books such as Norman Lindsay: Favourite Etchings, 1977 and 1984 and Norman Lindsay: 200 Etchings, 1974. The pages are described as 'original bookplates' and most people would think that it is an original work, not a page ripped out of a book. Allan has been able to advise a number of these sellers of their incorrect advertising and they have changed the descriptions of their items accordingly.

We want to advise that we are ever vigilant in our tracking of those who commit fraud and intend to follow-up with litigation. If you peruse the internet auction sites and notice anything that you feel is not legitimate, we would very much like to know.

For further information, please contact Allan by phone on (02) 6238 0724 on Mondays or Fridays only or Email. For more information on copyright and the Facsimile Etchings see Copyright.

The description and the photograph of the item are the two most useful parts of the sale to an eBay bidder. Bidders need to learn how the language of the description is used to make an item sound more than it is. Whilst descriptions are sometimes misleading, the sellers more commonly fail to detail the exact nature of the item, highlighting other facets of the work such as the frame or the age of the reproduction. The picture is the only option to view the item and these are often of poor quality.

It is important to remember that up to 50% of the items relating to Norman Lindsay on eBay at any one time are pages from books. Sometimes the seller will identify the book the page has been taken from but more often than not this is not included or camouflaged. The following are examples of commonly used descriptions from eBay sellers who auction pages out of books.

These are pages from Pen Drawings by Norman Lindsay published by McQuitty in 1924. They are reproductions of pen drawings which were tipped into this book (and therefore easily removed) and are not engravings at all.

These are also pages from a limited edition book. The seller describes this as a limited edition collotype. Collotype is simply the printing process and although the books were printed as a limited edition, in our opinion pages from these books are not limited edition see When is a Limited Ed tion Print Not? below.

WHEN IS A LIMITED EDITION PRINT NOT?

Several eBay sellers use the term Limited Edition Print to describe pages taken from books. In these cases the pages are taken from books which were printed as a limited edition book. Odana Editions considers it misleading to use the term limited edition in relation to pages from limited edition books. The pages are neither prints or limited edition. It is the book that is limited edition, not the component parts.

An example of this practice is the 1974 Angus & Robertson publication Norman Lindsay: Two Hundred Etchings. This publication was published as a two volume set and 210 were printed with 200 offered for sale. Jane Lindsay signed and numbered Volume I of each set. Some eBay sellers are taking the pages from this edition (and others) and referring to each page as a limited edition print, which is misleading.

Some have suggested that because the books were a limited edition, then by association so are the images contained within them. There are several flaws in this assumption.

The first is that the reproductions of the works were not created in their own right. This implies that they are not prints at all. Technically a print is an original work of art but is now used generically to describe a stand alone reproduction. However, a page from a book is not a stand alone reproduction. It was printed as a page which is part of a book and even if removed from a book is still a book page.

Another way to see the contradiction in using 'limited edition' to describe book pages is to use another medium altogether, such as a car. General Motors Holden produce a marque called the Monaro. This is a sports style car and several limited edition releases have occurred over the years. Each edition is different to the previous and a limited number of cars are produced in each edition. If you were to apply the term limited edition to this car such as some sellers do to book pages then the door, bonnet, seats, rear vision mirror and so on could all be removed as individual parts and classified as limited edition. In this case clearly no one would consider the components of the car limited edition. Only the car in its entirety is limited edition. If you view the picture pages of a limited edition book to be limited edition prints then the cover of the book, the title page and all the text and other contents are all limited editions too, which of course is non sensical.

As mentioned earlier, to use the term limited edition print, the work should have been produced in its own right. It may then be inserted into a book but it must be able to stand alone. There are some books containing work that do match this criteria. Norman Lindsay created a number of original works that were then included in books. Examples include the original etchings Columbine and Your Fate. However, they were not given page numbers or anything to suggest that they were not works in their own right.

The De Luxe Edition of The Complete Etchings of Norman Lindsay contains a limited edition Facsimile Etching titled The Artist. Both De Luxe editions of Norman Lindsay Watercolours: 1897-1969 and Norman Lindsay: Oil Paintings 1889-1969 contain limited edition photographs of paintings. None of the works that are tipped-in to the De Luxe editions are available separately, but if removed are still considered a limited edition in their own right. Remove a page from the same book and it remains just that, a page.

Increasingly, there are pages from books being offered on eBay and other auction houses that are being described as Bookplates. We receive numerous requests for information regarding the correct use of the term Bookplate or Bookplate Print being applied to Norman Lindsay reproductions in these situations. Commonly, eBay sellers and other auction houses are using the term Bookplate Print to describe a page cut out of a book. This is incorrect. A Bookplate Print is not a page from a book but a separate work of art altogether and should not be associated with pages taken from books.

In a number of books with reproductions of Norman’s works, each reproduction is listed as plate one, plate two and so on. The Two Hundred Etchings of Norman Lindsay is just one example. The seller then uses the term Bookplate Print to describe these reproductions reasoning that since the plates come from a book then they can be described as Bookplate Prints. This extrapolation is incorrect and misleading. There is no reference to these reproductions as Bookplate Prints in any of these books, only as plates. A number of books do not even refer to them as plates. A Bookplate is a distinctly different item and should not be confused with a book page.

Items commonly referred to as Bookplates on eBay are taken from several publications, the most common being Norman Lindsay: Favourite Etchings published by Angus & Robertson in 1977. This and the 1984 reprint contain 100 reproductions of etchings. Other books regularly broken up for their images include the Norman Lindsay Water Colour Book 1939, Paintings in Oil: Norman Lindsay 1945, Norman Lindsay: Pencil Drawings 1969 and Norman Lindsay: Selected Pen Drawings 1968. We have recently noticed pages from our own Watercolour and Oil Books now appearing on eBay being described as Norman Lindsay prints.

The difference between a page from a book and an original Bookplate is significant. A Bookplate or ex libris is a label identifying the owner of a book. It is usually adhered inside a book's front cover or to its front end paper. Many Bookplates are decorative. They often bear a coat of arms (with or without a family motto) or some other design personal to the owner. Bookplates are sometimes called "ex libris," because this Latin phrase meaning "From the books of . . ." traditionally appears on Bookplates. Modern Bookplates often carry images or text praising books or scholarly pursuits. Bookplates may contain a phrase, chosen by the owner, inscribed somewhere in the design, or the message may be purely visual.

It could be viewed that to describe a page from a book as a Bookplate print may breach section 55 of the Trade Practices Act 1974 which states: A person shall not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is liable to mislead the public as to the nature, the manufacturing process, the characteristics, the suitability for their purpose or the quantity of any goods.

It could also be argued that any seller who insists that a page from a book is a Bookplate Print is attempting to ‘sex up’ their item in the hope of gaining a sale and therefore is in breach of the Act. Norman did create a number of Bookplates during his life so it is misleading to align pages from books with his real Bookplates.

Bookplates have long been identified with bibliophiles (lovers of books, collectors of books). The earliest Bookplates appeared in Germany a few years after the invention of movable type. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528) and Hans Holbein the Younger (German, 1497/8-1543) designed and engraved several Bookplates. The earliest known American plate may be the one for Stephen Daye in 1642. Paul Revere (American, 1735-1818) was well known for his Bookplate engravings, as was Nathaniel Hurd (American, 1730-1778). The practice of designing Bookplates flourished throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

Norman’s first known Bookplate was a woodcut for his friend Hugh Conant in 1897. In 1898 he made a Bookplate for another friend JSC Elkington, and followed with a gift of a second in 1899. All told Norman produced fifty-two Bookplates, working mainly in woodcut and pen and ink, only seven were etched. Odana Editions has reproduced the Rose Lindsay Bookplate as a limited edition facsimile etching which is currently available. Clearly, there is a great deal of difference between Norman Lindsay Bookplates and pages from books that contain reproductions of Norman’s works.

Incorrect use of the term Bookplate Print is not exclusive to eBay sellers. It is also found to be incorrectly applied to reproductions offered by other internet auction sites and auction houses. Whilst it is not illegal to pull apart books to sell the individual pages one must question the ethics of those who carry out and endorse such a practice.

Placing a value on a page from a book is subjective but it can be reasoned through thus. When the book is pulled apart neither it nor its component parts are now complete and as such the value of each part is questionable. Many say that the value of such a work is in the frame only.

Some sellers have stated that it is allowable to use the term Bookplate incorrectly if the price of the item is low. This demonstrates a very poor level of professionalism and should not be accepted as an excuse.

We have often noticed that pages from books are also being described via the printing process that created them such as Hand Gravure, Collotypes or lithographs. Such a description may accurately describe the process by which the pages were printed but it does not change the fact that the item is still nothing more than a page from a book.

A number of current eBay sellers are calling the six etching reproductions in the 1928 publication of Satyrs and Sunlight ‘Hand Engravings’. This may lead the bidder to believe that the images were engraved by hand by the artist which is not the case. The description in the publication refers to them as Hand Gravures which is a different process to Hand Engraving. The six etching reproductions in Satyrs and Sunlight were reproduced by the Hand Gravure process, which is a process of photographing the original work and then using the negative to create a cylindrical plate for the printing press. However, the eBay bidder should understand that these images are essentially still a page cut out of a book.

Hand gravure is an itaglio process, similar in principle to etching. The gravure plate is made photographically. First, a continuous-tone (unscreened) positive film (or set of separate films for colour work) is made from the original art. If type is to be combined with images, the typematter is photographed onto line negative, and a contone negative of the image produced. Both type and image are then printed onto a combined positive screen. This film is then transferred to a gelatin transfer medium which has been previously screened with a 150 line glass screen. During exposure of the gelatin through the film positive, the light passing through the non-printing and pale areas of the image causes the gelatin to harden. The gelatin transfer is then laid around an electroplated steel cylinder and developed to wash away any soft areas of gelatin. This results in gelatin of a thickness corresponding to the tonal values of the image. Subsequent etching with ferric chloride penetrates the metal to a depth determined by the resistance of the gelatin coating. The result is the production of cells of differing depths. Deep cells are produced where the gelatin is thinnest and shallow cells where the image is of a light tone.

When the plate is ready, liquid ink is applied and the paper is fed through the press on rubber-covered cylinders. To produce the prominent plate mark the page is re-run through the press against a blank or blind metal plate. The Hand Gravure process requires a skilled printer to achieve an accurate plate.

The gravure process is superior to the lithographic process for producing high quality reproductions. The gravure process was chosen to produce the etching reproductions in the 1928 edition of Satyrs and Sunlight because it would reproduce the etchings most accurately. However, the gravure process is tedious and expensive and is the reason that the other works in the publication were reproduced using the collotype process.

The term Hand Engraving does not appear in this publication or the promotional material that was produced at the time. Therefore, to use the term Hand Engraving to describe these six reproductions is misleading.