Collecting Books

You'd be amazed at the M&M items in the world. This book gives a very good dispaly of what M&M collecters have. Not just the M&M dispensers there is so much more out there.

Bob Bard's book gives us a snapshot of state of the art toy soldier/ military miniature collecting as it was in the American 50's. This book was ideal in it's day, though a bit too generalized for modern tastes. That all the images are in black and white, and bit too high contrast hurts the overall usefulness, but still I enjoyed looking at some rarer soldier figures, including the Wax figures from the West Point museum. The real highlights are it's short section on modeling and casting figures from scratch, an aspect of the hobby sadly overlooked today with our easy access to professional figures of high quality. There is an introductory chapter on Wargaming which lays out the concept and some suggestions, but is not in itself a set of playable rules. If you want old fashioned rules look into the books of Featherstone, Morshauer, and Little Wars, or maybe visit the Armymen Webpages of Thor Shiel.

Having had a copy of this book in it's original paper version I can comment on it's value. It had about 900 pgs. with very good descriptions of the many types of barometers and their applications. Along with its many tables and graphs, mostly entered as appendicies, I considered it one of the best if not the only source of information on this subject.

A compilation of over 50 articles reprinted from publications of The Manuscript Society. It details how to assemble autograph collections by various topics: medical notables, litary, literary authors, politicians, scientists, etc. It slightly discusses the art of detecting forgeries.

Marble identification is complicated. This book has excellent photos to assist in identification. The narrative pertaining to each type of marble is informative, quick, and to the point. This is a book to be used.

Easier to use than some of the other marble "standards." It is well organized and the values, based on the condition of the marble, are with the marbles. Some of the other books have you constantly flipping from back to front to find a value. The different types of antique handmade marbles are logically grouped for the most part and the machine made marbles are divided by manufacturer.There is even a section with examples from contemporary marble artists. My one complaint would be that there should be an index to make finding of the great many types of machine made marbles easier. Until something better comes along, I carry this with me to auctions, flea markets, antique shows or anywhere else I think there might be an opportunity to buy, sell or trade marbles.

I'm not really a watch collector or WIS (watch idiot savant as some watch collectors refer to themselves), but I loved this book! Unlike just about every other watch book I've seen, it's _not_ just a catalog of different watch models with short descriptions. It's really well written, with prose worthy of the New Yorker. It does an excellent job of telling the history of watches, with the author's personal anecdotes integrated into the story. If I had the money, I'd enjoy collecting watches, but this book is an enjoyable read in and of itself.

A beautifully illustrated and thorough guide to Majolica, and an invaluable addition to any collector's library!

First to be exhibited to the public were seventy-four Impressionnist and Post-Impressionist paintings, published by Abrams in the acclaimed Hidden Treasures Revealed. Now-in this splendid companion volume and in a second landmark exhibition at the Hermitage-the public can rediscover eighty-nine important drawings by major artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

When this 1993 edition was new, it was a comprehensive listing of all things Matchbox. Lots of pictures and detailed information. Each year more models come out so the book goes out of date. Older editions are great starters for young children just getting the nack for colleting die cast cars.