So today I end up in Ojai with my in-laws-- we have some ice-cream, I get some pajamas with penguins on them, etc. We head into a dodgy looking antique store-- I always scan the walls for unrecognized treasures hoping that too many years of classes and studying prints will pay off-- Antique Road Show fantasy. On the wall, amazingly, I see an engraving (a portrait of van Dyck) that on closer inspection seems to belong to a set of portraits that I saw a few examples of in boxes at the university’s print room the other day. I have as good of a look of it as I can-- the plate mark is there, it is an engraving, certainly, etc., so I grab it for the marked $100 (and am soon lectured by all others in my party for not haggling) and get it home, open it up (finding that it is masking-taped to the mat :eek: but that is soon fixed) and it’s laid paper and has a watermark and looks exactly like one that the de Young museum has an image map of on its website-- same printing flaws, looks like an early impression. I’ll check it out in the Hollstein volume for this guy tomorrow for watermark and edition info.
So anyhow, hey, I found an engraving from the 1630’s in a cheesy antiique shop today!
I also got a travel grant for the summer. All in all a fine day.
Wow, so what is it worth, approximately?
Cool! PJs with penguins! 
Yeah, the PJs rock!
I’m not quite sure how much the thing is worth-- I’ve seen similar things listed for 200 brit pounds. Since this one is of Van Dyck and after van Dyck it might be of more interest, and it doesn’t seem to be trimmed as much as most. So it’s not worth a frikking fortune, but it is worth more than what I paid for it. My main glee comes from having picked a good one.