Want to buy old photos of Toronto? Thankfully, a huge number of historical Toronto images are quite easy to acquire from the Toronto Archives.

Depending on the size of image that you want, they're also not particularly expensive.

An 8" x 10" print costs $30, and 11" x 14" come is at $42, and a 16" x 20" will set you back $52.

If you're looking to go bigger than 16" x 20" then it's best to order an electronic file, which the Archives will give you on a USB or via FTP.

The price on these is ranges from $26 to $75, depending on whather it's already been digitized.

There are many thousands of digitized photos in the Archives collection eligible for printing/sale, the lists of which you can peruse here.

Toronto Library Archives

The next best bet for purchasing vintage images of the city is the Toronto Public Library.

Although the local holdings aren't as extensive as those of the Toronto Archives, the prices are similar, and there are plenty of excellent historical images of Toronto and the other areas in Ontario.

You can check out their collection on their Special Collections page.

Online classifieds

In addition to these surefire sources (both with easily searchable databases), you might have some luck on Ebay and other classfied sites, but it's difficult to know what kind of print quality you're going to get with the cheaper offerings, and it's always possible that you're buying materials that aren't supposed to reproduced for sale on account of copyright laws.

In other words, caveat emptor.

For a selection of historical images in the Archives collection organized by decade, have a look at our series Toronto in photos from the 1850s to the 1990s.