Tomkins, C.

Charlie Tomkins had a habit of lurking in printshops long after the ink dried, tracing the lines of early 1800s woodcuts with his fingertips. He collected the rough edges—peeling paper, ink blots, even the odd coffee stain—as proof that every print tells a small story. His slice of the H. Beard collection shows how a single sheet could travel from shop to tavern to parlor, picking up scratches along the way. Hunt down the December 1818 print in the bundle and follow the cracks; you’ll see why collectors used to call him the “ink archaeologist.”