Collecting Books

Michelle Dunn's, 3rd edition of Starting a Collection Agency, is a complete instructional guide written so even the novice entrepreneur would find it easy to follow. This step by step, "How-to" approach carves an easy path to success.

I would highly recommend this book not only to anyone interested in starting a collection agency but also to those willing to follow Michelle's model for any other business. Michelle's gift is to simplify a business approach that will help others succeed.....and she does it exceedingly well.

No one likes bill collectors, but they are a necessary evil to the continued financial prosperity of America. "Starting a Collection Agency: How to Make Money Collecting Money" is a guide to being what is viewed as many as the bad guy, but in fact is just something that must be done. Outlining all anyone needs to start their own company in this field, it leaves nothing to guesswork, covering everything from the frivolous as the stationary, to the advanced tactics of professional promotion. "Starting a Collection Agency: How to Make Money Collecting Money" is highly recommended for anyone looking to start their own business, and doesn't mind being viewed as the bad guy to do so.

"Supercollector: A critique of Charles Saatchi" shows a side of art world that few are aware of. This book by Rita Hatton and John A. Walker is well researched, clearly written and has enlightened many to the dealings behind the art scene. "Supercollector" explains and exposes Charles Saatchi's art collecting practices without becoming too biased and allows the reader to establish their own opinions about this art patron.

Reviewed by Julie Harvey

This is a great critique of Charles saatchi. It is the best one I have seen I highly recomend it to all people intrested in it.

If a bear wanted to find out his/her family history, this would be the encyclopedia to buy. Being a teddy bear is still very in vogue. This is a fascinating way to find out why we love teddy bears and why they appeal to collectors all over the world.

You can read about all the best-loved bears, from the original "teddy" to "Winnie-the-Pooh. The latest collectibles such as Beanie Bear and the Millennium Bears are also included. Pauline Cockril is the internationally recognized expert on the history of the teddy bear. She is also a regular contributor to Teddy Bear Times.

If you see a teddy bear and instantly want to buy it...this book IS for you. Also look for The Ultimate Teddy Bear Book which is considered to be the bible of arctophily (bear collecting) and is used by collectors, dealers and toy shops around the world.

The first bear listed was made in 1902 and was an experimental Steiff bear. The bears are listed all the way up to the year 2000. If you think you have seen it all...wait until you see the Pink Dino, a Swiss bear with characteristic elongated designs that I think looks more like a monkey. I much prefer the 1991 Pam Howells bear that has a lace collar, shaggy golden mohair plush "fur" and a cute hat trimmed with fabric roses. The Australian Teddy bear on pg. 137 looks somewhat like a koala bear for some reason. :)

I know a place where a lady has bears sitting everywhere in her Bed & Breakfast. You just want to take one of the bears home with you. In each room, she also has a "resident" bear that sits on the fluffy down-comforter covered bed. The whole place is like one big teddy bear picnic. I bet she knows about this book!

It is just unbearable not to own more bears. I must go shopping since I gave away most of my teddies when they had a teddy bear drive for kids. It was sad to say goodbye to some of them, but I know they are now happily living with a child who loves them. I do think it is time to start collecting again!

~The Rebecca Review

This is a great "beginner" book to learn about the points that distinguish one bear from another. Somehow they all seem to look alike at first!!

This book teaches you to pay attention to whether the nose is stitched up and down or from side to side. Are the feet big or are they little stumps? Are the eyes glass or plastic? Are the ears close together or far apart? Are the arms long and pointed or short and stumpy? These all are clues as to the date and manufacturer of the bear!!

Includes a section on repairing an antique bear (less is better!) as well as a section on newer bears!

A great learning tool! Written so it is easily understood........you don't have to already BE an EXPERT to BECOME one with the help of this well written book!!

Ken Yenke has presented a wonderful assortment of antique/vintage bears for the new and advanced bear collector to admire. The information in this book serves as a great guideline to what enhances a bear and specific price ranges to help acquire bears. The pictures give collectors ideas on how to successfully incorporate their bears in charming scenes with accessories, especially in the home. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in seeing and learning more about antique bears.

Ken Yenke presents a wide variety of his own, personal vintage teddy bears. His format highlights the features of each bear and gives the quality and price range. What makes this book stand out are the history and anecdotes pertaining to each bear and the photos showing each in a unique setting. This is a great book for those who like to look at special teddies as well as a collector's tool for determining identification and values.

This was a nice clean book in really good condition...just as advertised. I am pleased with it's condition and with the speedy delivery.

Collaboratively compiled and written by Tiffany experts and appraisers George A. Kemeny and Donald Miller, Tiffany Desk Treasures: A Collector's Guide is an informed and informative history of the wealthy American artist Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) and his especially crafted desk sets, as produced by Tiffany Studios and Tiffany Furnaces between the late 1890s and 1933. Full-color photographs showcase memorable works of art, while the "reader friendly" text accessibly describes the pieces' histories and subtle nuances of their creations. A superbly organized and presented history for Tiffany antique collectors (it also includes a Catalogue Raisonne of Tiffany Studies and Tiffany Furnaces Desk Accessories), as well as a gorgeous book for connoisseurs of fine art to simply page through, Tiffany Desk Treasures is far more inexpensive than (and the next best thing to) owning a personal Tiffany collection.

This book shows the front side of every Topps baseball card that was created from their inception in 1951 through 1990, when the book was published. It also includes the "Traded Series" for those players drafted or traded during said year. Each year has a section of what happened in the season during said year, and has a quiz. The quiz asks a question, and the answer is told in the form of a number, which correlates to a specific players card number for that year. This book is a joy to have, especially at looking into the past and seeing the players of yesteryear. The book is heavy, as it is almost 11 pounds, but it is well worth it!

Excellent View of all Topps Baseball Cards Presented Yearly of each cards front face reduced to approx. 20% of the actual size on nice premium glosy thick paper. Hoping that someday maybe the size (larger) and back side of each card can be made in the same format. For now the next best thing to actually owning the entire collection which (Depending of course on condtion) could cost approx. half million dollars. An excellent gift for any baseball card fan of years gone by to re-live there child-hood memories in this massive volume weighting more than 10-lbs.

I am interested in purchasing this book but I don't know it's value? I want to offer a fair price. What did it cost new and what are they currently selling for?

This book is hardly ever in at our 4 county library system. SoI bought the last one ... had. I made the mistake of giving it "to read and return" to a train buddy. Bad mistake. The variety, workmanship and excellent graphics made this a treasure. Guess I'll just have to ask my master modeler friend and fellow singer about its whereabouts. Shucks, there goes a perfectly good friendship. In estate planning there is the old, old saying: "Once you give it away, it's gone!"

I found this easy-to-read little book an excellent companion to Travers' more essential "How to make money...". The latter explains the workings of the rare coin market and the crucial grading arbitrage business that can lead to very fast profits. "Top 88..." is written primarily for the long term investor, providing rationale for why certain coins are likely to appreciate or lose value over time. This is done entirely with examples -- both pro and con -- to illustrate Travers' investment coin philosophy. The book is a little dated as I write this and it's likely Travers would modify the list to some degree in a new edition. This is only a minor shortcoming, however, an inevitable consequence of the passage of time. There is still plenty to learn here.

This book is going to help two primary classes of people: 'rare coin' collectors and collectors of 'rare' coins. Please indulge me with my distinction between the two. The rare coin collector is the person who builds a collection of coins, based around, say, getting one of each year and mint mark of the Buffalo Nickel, for instance. The collector of rare coins collects any coin that catches his fancy but which is distinguished by being extremely rare or highly prized within its genre, the 1955 Double Die Lincoln Cent, for instance. This book is going to help the latter type of collector because the coin-world renowned authority on U.S. coins, Scott Travers, has chosen 88 coins and categories of coins that are either 'winners' i.e. highly desirable and much sought after and 'losers' i.e. much hyped as being desirable and sought after but which are not, or carry too much of a premium to be worth acquiring. As a handy reference, this book is great for allowing one to get right to the point without having to do much of any research on one's own. Travers exxentially crystalizes decades of his coin buying/selling experience into brief form explaining why he has picked or panned each subject. These thumbnail analyses will be of help to the former type of collector to begin to understand what it is about an issue or series, mint state or condition, that creates demand and desire within a coin's niche. If one begins to employ critical analysis such as Mr. Travers does in his explications, whilst examining a coin or investigating a new realm of the coin collecting universe, one can make informed decisions about constructing the most highly desirable agglomeration of any given coin genre by knowing which coins to aggressively hunt for and acquire and which can be collected at one's leisure. After one has taught oneself to grade coins properly, this book is a must own for the entry level or, like me, just plain lazy collector of rare coins. Highly Recommended!!

George has done a great job of covering the history and the products of this great California and Hawaii institution. A very good read.

The book's focus is the pottery of two California-based companies, Treasure Craft and Pottery Craft, throughout the second half of the 20th century. Higby is intimately acquainted with his topic: he grew up on the West Coast with the pottery, he did business with its manufacturers, he has actively collected and traded in their wares for much of his adult life. He had personal access to the eyewitnesses, for reasons other than simply being an author or collector, and it shows.

My first impression of _Treasure Craft Pottery & Pottery Craft Stoneware_ came when I opened it to the middle: "Whoa! This is gorgeous!" I refer to the consistent flow of excellent photography throughout the volume: clear, near, well-cropped images in vivid colour and great quantity. Two typical facing pages will have six photos, occupying the bulk of the space but not all. All are clearly captioned as to era, value and size; somehow, the author (or publisher) worked in enough white space to avoid overwhelming the reader. Looks like 650 photos for 176 pages including the index: pretty impressive.

For someone who collects the pottery, it's hard to imagine a more definitive work. Bazillions of captioned, priced photos, who collects it and why, a pricing guide, condition, care, even how the stuff was made. If you're serious about collecting it, you're going to want it. But even if you're not, there are a number of reasons you might.

As the author says of himself, if you were born before 1990 this pottery was probably a part of your life whether you realized it or not. These companies must have done thousands of designs: hula dancers, salt shakers, cookie jars, condiment jars, little gnome creatures, fish trays, anything that could be made of pottery. In this timeframe, too, Hawaii went from "Place of bombed-out aero-naval base we will avenge" to "New state and national jungle gym." As Hawaii rose in the national awareness, so did interest in Hawaiian-themed images, and so on. If you just like to look at pictures, as many of us do but few will cop to, you can enjoy the book as a visual journey.

If you have a deeper interest, you'll appreciate that Higby has gone much farther: he places each pottery era in the broader context of its time, describing how the pottery was meant to mesh with popular wants, issues and mores. I have always loved to see history, any history, written well and without wonkiness. Rarely is it this well researched and broad-minded, free of the infuriatingly buzzwordy affectations that paralyze much business historical writing. The broader historical overlay is the theme of American-made crafts as a dying breed: Treasure Craft's long, tenacious rearguard action to remain an American company making American products to sell to Americans.

_Treasure Craft Pottery & Pottery Craft Stoneware_ also has much to interest potters: anyone who works in clay and cooks their stuff in a big hairy kiln at temperatures that scare me. "How'd they make this stuff, anyway?" The author has included a lot of technical detail on this score. My wife has been after me to get a pottery wheel for years, and when I lose that struggle--as surely I must--I know she will load up on ideas from this book.

It's kind of ironic that a book about items that used to sit on coffee tables now qualifies as a coffee-table book, one perfect for the collector but of interest to nearly anyone else who remembers the popular pottery of the 1950-2000 era--or who lived through it and would enjoy the nostalgia.

The number of parents and grandparents who would love this as a gift must reach into the tens of millions, and I bet most neither have it nor know where to find it. Wife and I are going to have an easy Christmas this year.

If you wouldn't know a Kilim if it bit you in the leg, you'll soon be able to do a lot more than just bluff your way in the world of rugs! This book takes you through it all quite painlessly!

Beautifully illustrated with full colour pictures of rugs from all around the world, it is a pleasure to leaf through as much as to read for its detailed information on what makes these wonderful rugs what they are.

Maps, texts and illustrations take you through the cultural and practical aspects of rug design and manufacture. For the professional dealer or the enthusiastic amateur like me, this is an indispensable book! Anyone who has read it will know how much better equipped they are to snap up the best buys with confidence.

...I disagree with the author saying that "every rug needs a degree of breathing space". I realize that is a Westernized viewpoint, and tastes vary...but these beautiful one-of-a-kind works of art were originaly intended to cover a tent floor...to the point of overlapping at times ! My preference is to see them in close proximity to each other, a glorious mosaic of rich color and design.
I also disagree with the statement that the rug has to "match its surroundings", which is like buying a painting to match the sofa. To my way of thinking, a piece of art, whether a painting or rug, should give one an uplifting thrill, not "match" something.

The first 4 chapters are on everything from detailed descriptions of how rugs are made, where to buy them, their care and repair, and the ethnic groups worldwide that make them.
This is followed by brilliantly colored illustrations of 44 rugs and 3 bags, from the marvelous Belouch animal design that graces the cover to a Navaho pictorial flatweave.

Chapter 5 is about the designs, and how to identify them. Chapter 6 is on the regions (maps are included). 7 and 8 are on the tribal groups, from those in Adraskand, to the Yurks, and describes the patterns, colors, and quality produced by each group.

So though I don't agree with the decorating ideas, it's 5 stars for the research and remarkable detail that has been put into this volume. It's an excellent primer, as well as a good reference book.