References and Standards Books

The first two editions of this catalog received less than favorable reviews, so I waited until the third edition to buy one hoping that the bugs would be worked out. The listings for most countries are more current in that coins up into 2007 are included, which is reasonable for a 2009 edition that had to be printed in early 2008 or earlier. Older editions often were three to five years behind. On the down side, the catalog still includes major problems: LARGE numbers of coins for most countries are listed without pictures (80% or more for some smaller countries), some catalog numbers are different than those in earlier editions, some coin descriptions do not match the coins pictured (which is correct, the description or the picture???), some descriptions do not list the subject of the coin (especially a problems with some poor pictures), some coins are listed more than once with different catalog numbers (if all coins had pictures, this problem would be more obvious). The listed coin values are a mixed bag. Most of the values for newer commemoratives look like full retail as issued by the mints or their distributors. Values for coins from countries that are hot right now are a joke, but predicting market swings is beyond the scope of any catalog. Use the values as guides to approximate values and not the actual values.

With all the problems, this catalog (and the others in the series) remain the most comprehensive source of information available on world coins. The specialty collector can find better catalogs--usually at much higher prices. The more general collector or novice should use this catalog, if for no other reason than using the catalog numbers for record keeping and communicating with other collectors or dealers. The publisher could do a great service to the hobby by fixing the problems, especially adding pictures for ALL of the coins.

With every passing year the edition of a separate 21st century coin catalog becomes more justified. Any coin collector can easily list a number of countries which do their best to fill the volume with products of their mints and national banks. China and France alone add at least two to four pages yearly, Russia and Poland are not far behind. It does make sense to produce this catalog and yet there are doubts.
The 2009 edition brings another selection of new commemoratives plus a handful of fairly interesting regular coins but somehow I am still unconvinced that there were credible reasons for splitting the 1900+ volume into two - the 20th and the 21st century (apart from making more money on collectors ;) If you could remove "patterns etc." sections - most of which interest less than a hundred people all around the world - the 20th and the 21st century catalogs could still easily be produced as a single volume.
The volume seems to have become too big to handle for its editors. Several times the same coins are listed twice (Bangladesh 2 taka is the first to come to mind) with minute differences in descriptions as if there were differences between two coins. It seems nobody had the strength to edit the whole volume carefully...
In short - if you are seriously interested in commemorative world issues, this is your book. You simply must buy it as the only other choice is checking various internet sites. Yet if your interests are more moderate getting a new edition every two or three years should be enough.

I bought this CD based on the idea that it would allow me to bring the details into my Auto Cad 2008LT. It does not work at all like it is advertised to. I contacted the producers of the program they said they where aware that it did not always allow a full interaction of there product with Auto Cad. There solution was to contact Autodesk about the problem. Don't waste your money no support no help.

This product is a must for anyone who has serious accurate construction drawings of any kind to make at all. It full of information and the search procedures are easy to use.

Why bother with the CD when the book is such a pleasure to use?

The BOOK rates SIX STARS. The CD rates NO STARS. Get the book for half or a third the price of the CD. It's worth it.

The cd contains many raster scans of tables from the book and links to commentary that you can find elsewhere in greater detail. The links to industry aren't anything special, considering you can find them many other places for free. The interface is clunky, and hard to read. Access to the data is read-only off the CD rather than allowing you to load it and access it from the hard drive. The vector CAD drawings are simplified and generic - suitable for instruction, but certainly not for real work. You won't save any time trying to use them for anything but reference, so why bother? This CD is worth 1% of its list price and should just come with the book at no cost. Don't be taken in by the hype.

The figures of this book are very useful for details in professional drawings. On the other hand, it gives simple ideas to solve common problems on construction.

This book does a good job of introducing the reader to many of the concepts covered in the CCNP cert exams. If you need a straightforward, plain-language primer on routing protocols, spanning tree, connection options, and support, this is a great book. Unfortunately, it usefulness is limited for some of the details on the 642 series of tests. I *would* recommend this book as part of a layered studying approach to the exams. Additional resources will be more clear after reading this book.

This book is more useful for final revision for the CCNP. It does not cover any topic in enough detail to give you the depth of understanding you need for the CCNP. The CD that comes with the book is TERRIBLE. It has errors, missing portions and shows that it was rushed out without any proper quality checking. In short, stick to the Cisco Press books for CCNP information.

This book covers all areas of the state of California, and could be very useful in comparing and selecting between the eleven areas of the state that the authors profile. The book covers many cities and towns, but does miss some towns that could be of high interest to retirees -- such as Auburn and Morro Bay. Unfortunately, since the books was copyright in 1998 and because of the rapid increases in real estate values, the home prices given are quite out of date.

Very good explanations and data of the towns covered. I wish the author had included a more cities in the book.

Contrary to the other review. I MUCH PREFER this dictionary to the Kiadó dictionaries. This one includes many more usage suggestions and expressions SO KEY to figuring out hungarian. Plus it has 30,000 words where the Kiadó has 19,000. Tall and skinny - OK to travel with.

Akademiai Kiado's two English-Hungarian dictionaries, MAGYAR-ANGOL SZOTAR (ISBN 9630569434) and ANGOL-MAGYAR SZOTAR (ISBN 9630569426) are excellent concise dictionaries that are very suitable for students. Edited by Tamas Magay and Laszlo Kiss, the dictionaries are sold in bookshops in Hungary and are mainly focused at Hungarians. However, the editors were kind enough to make these entirely useful for English speakers. The Hungarian foreword has an English translation, the list of abbreviations has explanations in both English and Hungarian, and there's a layout of Hungarian speech sounds just for foreigners. MAGYAR-ANGOL SZOTAR contains three appendices. The first, a table of English irregular verbs, and the second, a short list of English irregular nouns, need not concern us. However, the third, conversions between metric and imperial weights and measures (and their English and Hungarian terminology) will prove quite useful for the foreigner travelling in Hungary.

Now Hippocrene has brought the English-Hungarian dictionary to the United States, but I'd recommend against getting it in this form. It is a poorly-made book, and is sized as a trade paperback annihilating the advantage that the original Hungarian printing had in its pocket size. Get the Hungarian print instead, which is durable (hardcovers with no dust cover) and insanely cheap (especially when bought on the spot). There's no better option for pocket dictionaries than that.

This is one of the best price guide books for American records. Due to its detailed information and clearly organized listings, it surpasses all previous publications in its scope and usefulness. It adds artists not previously mentioned in past price guides but does omit artists on a somewhat arbitrary basis. Why Getz and not Gillespie etc.? For the artists it does include, much hard work is reflected in the thorough discographies which list reissue information and pressing chronology with great accuracy. Obscure artists with limited product are, as is common with books of this type, omitted. For the money, this is the best book. Only Osborne's Rockin Records covers more ground, but in less essential detail.

What a letdown! While this book purports to cover the period 1950-1975, I was sadly disappointed to find that it completely omits one of the most important musical influences of that period, DON COSTA, who was a noted arranger-conductor, master of the 12-string guitar, a performer in his own right, and a man who influenced the careers of many well-known performers like Frank Sinatra, Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme, Johnny Mathis, Ferrante & Teicher, Paul Anka, and the list goes on. Don Costa's fabulous arrangements have appeared on labels such as ABC-Paramount, Columbia, Mercury, United-Artists, and his own label, DCP-International. Don Costa was a true musical genius and as such, he was hired to be the musical director of a major Boston, MA radio station when he was only 15 years old!... One can only wonder what other important performers or facts were left-out of this book, and such omissions only serve to cast doubt on the seriousness of the data that did manage to find a place between the covers of this publication!

This book is the most useful quick reference to GAAP. You are able to find answers to any accounting questions very quickily without having to pay thousands to talk to an accountant.

Jan R. Williams has made a career out of these nondescript updates and rewrites. Unfortunately, this book has serious problems and factual errors. Save your money!

This product presumably consists of two volumes. The data is in a highly useful format, but Amazon's idea of a two-volume set is two copies of volume 1. You can't build much of a chemical equilibrium model working only with Al through Co. They refinded the money for the non-existant volume 2, but won't refund for the now-totally useless volume 1. You might try buying the set direct from Springer, the original publisher. When I complained Amazon said they were too big and important (my paraphrase) to bother with checking their stock to see if it is really what they advertise. Actually the problem probably originated with Springer, since the 2nd Volume 1 was actually in a Volume 2 jacket. Buyer beware.

The JANAF themorchemical tables are the standard reference for anyone interested in performing thermodynamic or chemical calculations on real substances. The data contained in these tables is an invaluable source of basic thermochemical information, collected into one place. For anyone studying equilibrium chemistry -- buy it!

I own the 1977...5th edition, this book quickly allows a
novice to gain a fairly comprehensive grasp of the subject.
After only a few hours of reading an engineer, designer or
draftsperson can generate an informative deduction.
The book accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do,
and that is simplify a very complicated and costly code.

This provides a broad overview of the ASME Code pertaining to boilers, process vessels and DOT vessels. It could be useful to a plant engineer needing an overview for code vessel management, but falls short for the engineer involved in the design of pressure vessels.