Many antique prints and maps originate from antique books. In some cases prints are removed due to the depreciated conditon of the the book or the book is incomplete. In other cases books are disassembled to separate the illustrations from the text and sold separately; in the trade they are refered to as 'breakers'. By hand colouring and framing these prints, decorative images are created and these are often sold under subject categories. Some larger prints were contracted to artists by certain personas of the past centuries as actual art prints.

The most commonly used book print techniques are: Woodcut or wood engraving, where blocks of wood, traditionally from the box tree are engraved and printed. These were the original early illustrations and date from 1460. Steel engraving, the steel plate is incised with cuts which when inked print as lines. Aquatint, a form of etching using fine particles to create areas of tone.In good quality early 19th century books these were originally hand coloured. Later the plates were printed using coloured inks either with more than one colour on a single plate or using several plates, one for each colour.

Mezzotint, the plate is finely textured to print black when inked. The plates are then burnished to hold less ink creating tonal areas, smooth areas printing white.