Antiques Collectibles Books

Larry McMurtry is tired, ornery, depressed.

He worries that people don't read much anymore. He stopped reading fiction, for the most part, 20 years ago. He likes British political biography, the diaries of minor British aristocrats, (mostly) British travel writers, and of course the history of the American West (on which he has written and reviewed wonderfully), although there isn't really any of that here.

He is a book collector. Personally, I don't understand the collector mentality and find it annoying. He wonders why most people would care to read that he found such-and-such a book for $1 in 1956 in a garage and now it fetches $12,000 at Christie's. He is right to wonder, as are his editors and publishers. (Perhaps this is the last "book" of a multi-book deal?)

Over the years, Larry McMurtry has run into some colorful characters and come across rare books in book shops and at auctions. He relates a few humorous anecdotes about such people and things in a way that makes them not very funny. He summarizes the existences of a number of book stores and their owners/collectors (which should be interesting, but is not).

This latest effort reads like a series of notes for a book. Or the draft of a magazine article. It is randomly assembled and poorly edited. (By this I mean the editors should have told him, No, Please Give Us Something Approaching a Book!) Eventually, I started skimming for obscure book recommendations, and even found a few. The one surprise here is that McMurtry had and/or has large collections of comics and soft pornographic novels over the years. And he considers Pynchon's V a "masterpiece."

Most tellingly, and in defense of the title of my review, he repeats, very often, anecdotes from his great book-length essay, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen. Please, if you read this review, and haven't read that, DO NOT read Books, but rather go and get yourself a copy of Dairy Queen instead.

This work is a collection of unedited ramblings that jump around after a strong start. I suspect the author dictated while fondling books from off the shelves. It is a work inferior to others published under his name.

If "Dairy Queen" brought you to this book, you might end up being disappointed. The book is a series of 1 to 4 page anecdotes.

Some of the pages in the copy I had kept sticking together while I was reading and therefore there were times when I would move from one anecdote to another without completely reading one piece and in many instance I felt like skipping over but did not.

There are fish stories and there are personality stories, but there is no center to this narration, it goes on. if it had been a series of blogs, it might have been powerful...not sure whether the author's desire to kindle interest in books would really happen through this book.

I learned a lot of interesting things from this book about the bookselling business. If you want a quick, intelligent read for summer, this would work. And Chapter 29, about the adventures of C. Dorman David, is worth the price of the book.

But as I neared the end of the book, I realized that there wasn't that much about the average reader who looks for particular books to read and treasure. For example, Ludwig Lewisohn's 1932 book Expression in America talks about forgotten classics like George Frederic Hummel's Subsoil and Ruth Suckow's The Odyssey of a Nice Girl. I happily discovered both of those books at the big John King bookstore in downtown Detroit.

There's nothing in McMurtry's book about bookstore visitors like me. He seems to be most interested in wealthy bookowners who buy books as much for show as for reading pleasure. For a book about the enthusiastic everyday reader, I'd recommend Christopher Morley's two classics, Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop.

I came to know McMurtry as many did through his excellent novel Lonesome Dove: A Novel (Simon & Schuster Classics). Then I learned I already knew him through the many screenplays and novels he has written that became major motion pictures: Hud, The Last Picture Show (Definitive Director's Cut Special Edition), Terms of Endearment to name a few. I have since read most of what he has written. I heard he owned an eclectic used antique book store filled with many hard to find books many collector items, his novel Cadillac Jack : A Novel was about an antique book scout. So I was interested to read this memoir of McMurtry's life as a bookman. I use the term Bookman because you don't have to be a writer to be a bookman. McMurtry's simple mastery of the language is again on display as he takes on his journey of becoming a book scout and collector. The characters he meets and the places he travels are brought vividly to life. He ends up opening used book stores that carry rare and collectable editions, the eclectic of which is the one he opens in his home town of Archer City Texas (also the setting for the last Picture show, and subsequent sequels). McMurtry gives the reader an adventurous and some time comic look into the world of those who collect and covet rare books, a world inhabited by some strange birds! What I enjoyed most about this book, however, was the insight into how the many books he has read has formed his literary outlook and influenced his writings ( I have more than I few new books on my to be read list after finishing this book). This is a book I will read more than once.

I also want to recommend Across the High Lonesome which I picked up after seeing Mr. McMurtry give good marks.

I've relied on older editions of the Official Red Book for information about various coins that I've seen. Having been a coin collector since I was a child, I decided to purchse this book to see what information has changed or been updated. From time to time, I've found unexpected coins in my change and I enjoy being able to look them up to see what they are, what historical period they might represent, etc. It also helps me understand this country's history through its coinage.

This book was just what I was looking for. I have a coin collection that I want to sell and needed to find out the current market value. Easy to read, nice spiral binding.

This price guide covers a lot of coins that aren't covered in coin price magazines. It provides more detail about each coin series in general. It is also a numismatic reference with a wealth of background knowledge and details on many die varieties. Here is some of what you'll find inside:

- High-quality color photos of all coins
- Background info on each coin series
- Prices by grade (although prices aren't shown for the scarcer grades)
- Mintage figures
- Metal composition for each coin variety
- Closeup photos of many major die varieties, especially bust halves

Included are photos, background data, and prices for many coins you won't likely find in other price guides, including:

- Colonial issues
- Post-colonial issues
- Pattern coins
- Commemoratives
- Proof and mint sets
- Bullion coins
- Private and territorial gold
- Private tokens (including Civil War and Hard Times tokens)
- Confederate coins
- Hawaiian coins and tokens
- Philippine issues
- Alaskan tokens
- Mis-strikes and error coins

In addition to the coin listings, there is a wealth of information in the front of the book, including:

- Description of coin grades (no grading photos, though)
- Introduction to, and history of United States Coins
- Checking coins for authenticity
- Famous coin hoards
- Sunken coin treasures

Some of the negatives are as follows:

- Prices for uncommon but certainly not rare coin grades are not included (example: AU and mint state draped bust large cents)
- Intermediate coin grades (example; AU-58, MS-66) are not shown (Coin Values magazine shows these, but Coin Prices magazine does not)
- The coverage of Hard Times tokens, a popular series, is very inadequate

My husband has bought this book for years. He particularly likes the ring binder. Your service was excellent.

#1 Best Selling Price Guide is a MUST:

The official RED BOOK a guide book to United States Coins R.S.Yeoman ed. Kenneth Bressett, 61th edition, Whitman, 2009.

Best in organization, easy of use, pictures, illustrations, & data, also the most popular. Whitman's RED BOOK is an essential guide, indispensable requisite and required handbook with up-to-date numismatic information.

Best of the best in the area of numismatics have contributed to this volume, the most notable, respected, knowledgeable and distinguished numismatist were consulted for the 61th edition.

165 plus prominent coin collectors auctioneers, and museums contributed directly to the 2009 Red Book Guide, Bressett, Jeff Garrett, Tom Hallenbeck, Steve Contursi, Ira & Larry Goldberg, Bill Fivaz, David Akers, Silvano DiGenova, the Smithsonian Institution, Heritage Galleries, the ANA money museum, Stack's Rare Coins, Superior Galleries, the United States Mint, and several dozens more.

The guide has some problems, notable some errors occurred and as I mentioned earlier "All" prices guides without exception are outdated by the time is printed, mainly due to market conditions, collector interest, commodities volatility, speculators, currency value, supply & demand, among others.

Numismatics is a hobby as any other do not expect a handsome return on your investment, at least not a monetary one. Have fun. Good luck.

This blue book is packed with information not found in other gun value books. For the professional this may well be all that's needed, but for a novice it's extremely difficult to figure out which model is which in many instances, and the lack of photo's makes the identification process next to impossilbe.

Just after purchase thinking that Amazon had the best prices in town. I found the same book from another source for $25.00 delivered !! Oh well you live and learn.

Book received fast and as described !! Saved a lot on a brand new book !
Excellent transaction, don't get any better !!

I use this book for reference to find gun values and information on makes and models. This one was not packaged properly and the front cover and first dozen pages were damaged in shipment. Wish you had been more careful in your packaging!!!!!!!

Was able to find just about everything I wanted to look up. Loads of info and pictures!

I bought two of these maps for my 9 & 8 yr. old sons who just recently started collecting the state quarters. This map is a perfect way of displaying the quarters and it looks great.
There is a slot in each state for its quarter (or next to it for the smaller NE states), there are facts about each state, it is pretty durable and it folds for easy storage.
My boys both love their maps. I could not be happier with my purchase.

This one is a good one. Put the quarter into its state. Cool.... But I thought the cover is harder.

We loved the quarters collector map. Bought it for a gift and it was nicer than I even expected.

I purchased a few of these folders for my kids' quarter collections based on all the positive reviews it was getting. The folder offers a tidbit of information from each state, such as when they became a state, the capital, nicknames, mottoes, state flower and state bird. It also has a big map in which you place your quarters directly into a color-coded state, which helps you see when that quarter was released. Underneath the quarter is a picture of that state's seal. It is educational and a great place for kids to keep their quarters as well as a way for them to learn a little about each state.

There are a few things that I didn't like about the folder. First off, it's size. It does state the dimensions but I neglected to pay attention to that. It is rather large when I was hoping to get something more along the size of a large book. The other thing I didn't like are the 4 extra little spaces at the bottom of the map for you to put extra coins in. At first I was excited, thinking it was a spot to put the 4 new nickels that have recently been released. I thought that was such an ingenious idea to include that so the coin collection could all be in one place. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the holes were too large for nickels to fit. At that point, I was very confused as to what those holes were for so I went to the internet to find my answer. The 4 spaces along the bottom are there for you to put your favorite state quarters in. So you would have one state quarter in the actual state map and an extra on the bottom. I didn't like this, especially after my excitment about thinking they were for the nickels! Plus, how can I select my favorite state quarter when I liked them all just the same?!

That being said, I would still purchase this product. It is a great value for a spot to stick your quarter collection. I would never want to spend more than this ($7.99) for a quarter folder/book, especially when they are for my kids and I needed to buy multiple ones. This price was just right and it is a great tool and quarter holder for the kids.

The State Series Quarters Collector Map is just the product I had been looking for. The quarters do not fall out of the holder as they do in some of the other products. The map folds and secures with a velcro closure which is nice. Each quarter is easily removed to view a picture of that state's seal which is an additional educational benefit. My son and daughter are both elementary school teachers (with lots of teacher friends) so I have now collected many sets of the state quarters and have used this product for all of them.

This isn't fancy, but it works quite well for holding our collection. It has places for quarters from the Philadelphia mint as well as the Denver mint. Sure makes you pay a bit more attention to your change!

I really liked this product. It is nicely made, and provides a lot of interesting information about each state. Some of the quarters were hard to get in, but if you push against them with your thumb, it works well. And once the quarters are in, they don't fall out, unlike with other folders. I would definitely recommend it to others.

This has to be my favorite coin folder yet. It has a slot for both P and D mintages and the coins fit into the slots perfectly (unlike the presidential coin folder by whitman.) I highly recommend it. :)

This is a well made product but I didn't realize that it was for the state quarters that come from BOTH mints. I would have been happy with one that held only one set of coins but that is my fault for not reviewing the product details closely enough. If you want to collect the coins from both mints (Philadelphia and Denver respectively) this is a good product. I am new to this so I don't know if there are other folders that allow you to get the coins out or to adjust them once they are in the slots, but this one makes it very difficult to adjust the coins once they are in.

This book cost me 10 dollars including shipping and I must say it is absolutely worth it! As another review said, the coins do show up a dent on the back of the book but then hey.. what did you expect for 6 bucks???? and that's why I give it a 5 star instead of 4... great product... my husband absolutely loved it!!

This was great! I bought two! One for me and one for my brother who is turning 40 this year. Everything that brings me back to my childhood when I collected them. A real find for Wacky Packages fans!

Now I have that stupid song stuck in my head. But this little gem of a book brought back a lot of laughs long stifled since my childhood. We went nuts for Wacky Packages and we swapped and we traded and we bartered and all of that stuff. My neighbor had some real old vintage ones on her refrigerator that I would go crazy for. But it seems like they haven't included ALL of them. There has to be a sizable number of images that didn't make it into this book. Perhaps I'm mistaken and this book only offers up a few volumes in the series....I know there is stuff that I had that's missing from this book. But - anyway, if you grew up in the 60's and early 70's and you remember purchasing these things for 10 cents or so, this is a wonderful book that looks back on adolescence and hits the funny bone hard. It's short on words and descriptions, but that's fine. The laugh-out-loud images are enough. This book brought a huge smile to my face that didn't go away for a long time. It brought back a wave of great memories and for that, it's worth twice the price!!! I love it!

This is (at least one of) the logical extensions of Warhol, to the extent that the representation and/or the "idea" of the product is theoretically no different than the product itself. Actually, it's more interesting than Warhol; it's satire that is automatic, mass produced, and not the least bit funny.

Yes, the reproductions are unreasonably beautiful, and I'm not just saying that because I had a Wacky Packages fetish when I was a kid. "Hawaiian Punks" has always been my favorite. There is something about the red and green mushed-up glob of a former human being, as he seems to ooze off the sticker, that is just as transfixing to my adult eye as it was to my far less discriminating 10-year-old self.

This is cultural detritus raised to an utterly undeserved level. I feel like tearing all of the pages out and framing them properly. The apocalypse will be arriving when?

This book may be one of the most pointless things I ever needed to have. The production is gorgeous, down to the waxy Topps paper the dustcover is printed on. If you're looking for a lot of scholarly insight it's not here. Art Speigelman's brief intro tells you everything you need to know, the rest is pictures of the stickers. For a designer, this book is pure inspiration - wacky wordplay, pastiche, essence of package design, etc. And the price is terrific.

I was born in Philadelphia and when I was growing up in the 60's, one of my vices was.......Wacky Packages! These fun sticker trading cards were like "crack" to kids in my neighborhood! The twisted parodies were all done by some very famous artist and today the stickers can empty your wallet faster than you can chew bubble gum!

I am a collector of many things and I am also a complete-ist! Which would make collecting these stickers very expensive! I collect Monster and Super Hero statues, figures, magazines, trading cards, films, and way too much more! I also collect other items from my youth and I was going to venture into Wacky packages, but after some research, I found it would be too costly to complete the collection.

There is also a lot you need to know before you start buying/collecting these cards, spotting counterfeits and re-released versions is just part of the chaos and then finding them in good condition from reputable sellers is another.

This book will solve the problem for most nostalgia hunters and definitely for me! The book is laid out so that every sticker is presented on it's own page. The pictures are beautiful and clear and are in order of release separating each series with a divider page. It's a sweeeet little book that measures 7 1/2" tall and 5 3/4" wide and the dust jacket looks like a Wacky Packages wrapper to boot!

This Hard cover book has very little text and only covers the first 7 series of cards, but it's well worth the price if you like these stickers. I can only hope that there will be a second volume with series 8 through 16 included! I'll buy it and I'm sure anyone who bought this volume will too!

As a bonus there is a collectors pack of four classic "Wacky Packs" stickers! Very Cool!

While useful and informative and, indeed, a must if you buy coins, this book is quite outdated. Since the price of gold and silver have gone up considerably and change daily, the effect on coins is intense in many cases.

There are several sites online where you can get more up-to-date information. Yet having this handy is a good idea. I like having something near my work area and in my hands so I can quickly look up the information I want. Then I can follow that up by going to one of the Web sites.

-Susanna K. Hutcheson

This handbook (The Blue Book)provides a good target price representing dealer's cost for all the US Coins listed in the corresponding retail value Red Book. Invaluable reference tool for quick evaluation of a seller's coin price markups for the casual collector who doesn't need up to the minute price changes. Use it with the Red Book to establish a range for buying and selling.

The Bluebook is an invaluable reference when you are selling coins (along with the Redbook when buying) since it tracks what coin dealers pay for coins. You need to keep in mind that in a "hot" market prices change rapidly which can make the Bluebook "dated" fairly quickly. In any case it does provide a baseline indicating what others have received for coins in specific grades over the past several months giving some indication of what you should receive from a coin dealer.

If you are interested in what you can expect to pay for a coin you want to buy then use the Redbook which tracks the amount dealers charge for coins in specific grades.

The difference between the Redbook and Bluebook indicates the monies retained by dealers for the value they add to collector's trades. So, if you are trading collector-to-collector with no dealer involved, the two references can serve as the high and low bar for the negotiation process.

Easy to use
Contains all information you need to assess any coin
A wise purchase

This book is nice to use when you are wanting to sell one of your coins. It would be a better book if it would come in spiral bound so that it is easier to use.

The Oxford Companion to Wine is a great encyclopedia for wine lovers. It covers a great breadth of topics, deeply enough to be informative, but in a short enough fashion to keep this under 1000 pages. Coverage includes wine growing regions, wines, vine varietals, wine making, barrel making, bacteria, and on and on.

One thing this is not - it's not a review/criticism of specific wines (which tend to become out of date too quickly to be useful in book form).

Highly recommended.

Along with most of the reviewers here, my wine-knowledgeable friends, to whom I gave this book as a wedding anniversary present, were extraordinarily pleased. They tell me that they learn something new from it every day, and that it has "everything about wine" within its covers.

I have been working in the wine industry for many years and I have never come across a more complete reference book. It is worth every cent.The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd Edition

The Oxford Companion to Wine is one of the best books about wine that I have seen.

Having a healthy interest in wine (don't drink too much most of the time) this answers so many of the questions that I've had over the years. It gives many of the expected details of different wine regions and wine classifications throughout the world in great detail. It also gives information on the winemaking process, the different varieties, how to consume wine (storage, tasting), qualities and faults in wine, famous personalities/labels in wine and wine history. All this with some beautiful fullpage photographs, maps and diagrams. Makes a great present and should be a mandatory accessory for anyone with a substantial wine collection.

CGC is great but this is the "bible" for the industry. Long live the King!

there is many information that you can use and know other sites that you didn't know before, so you can check prices and where to buy the best bargain.
paper is also great. glossy.

38th edition of Overstreet is the best yet. The ads are a valuable resource for pricing and buying/selling. The top sales of CGC certified comics is handy, too. There are articles from the Overstreet team of advisors -- collectors & dealers who know the latest trends.

I use this to beef up my own collection, knowing the trends and investing smartly. What are the top ten sellers? What Silver Age hero is in high demand? What's my House of Mystery lot worth? It's all here!

Other interest:

Comic Book Collecting: A Valuation Guide

I have been a comic book collector for over 50 years. During that time I've looked at every price guide ever published. While I get an occasional insight from other sources, I consistently find that the Overstreet annual guides are by far the best source. I also find that collectors of all ages and sophistications rely on this guide so it tells me what the market will be for comics I might want to buy or sell.

Some people feel like they don't need to buy these every year. I disagree!

Even the advertisements are valuable . . . I've found many helpful, low-cost suppliers through these pages over the years.

I especially enjoyed the updated versions of articles about much older comics in this edition. Don't miss them.

And I rarely even look at the prices. This is THE reference book for what was published, when, the actual title, which issues feature notable artists, guest appearances, first appearances, origins, major events like weddings and deaths, etc. If you collect comics you need this.

I am a casual DC Comics fan who was much more into comics in my youth. I bought this encyclopedia because I used to enjoy reading "Who's Who," a series in the 80's that featured biographies of DC characters. The cover art on this is striking, done beautifully by Alex Ross. The biographies have all been updated, so it was nice to hear about what my favorite (or obscure) heroes and villians have been up to the last 10-20 years. The entries are generally well-written, though I have found an error here and there. Occasionally, an entry will say deceased, but not mention how or if the character died or not say deceased, but indicate in the entry that the character died. Also, this was produced before the "Infinite Crisis" series, which changed (and in some cases killed) many of the characters in the DC universe. Overall, though, it's a pleasant read for casual fans and a way to pass time here and there. It would make a great gift for children 12 and up, I would say.

Loved this and being I am not a comic guy and only know story lines via cartoons and movies so this filled in the blanks and back stories, orgins and the anamation is great.

At the rate Character Bio's change within the DC Universe its amazing that an Encyclopedia can even be put together at all but since a lot of the writers now a days are referencing characters i might not be familiar with, this Book at least makes it possible to get an idea about who it is or was at one point... its only drawback is because of when it was published a small percent of the information is not canon with todays stories.

Book delivered the powerful punch I was expecting. Bought for my son and he loves it. It is very informative.

This is a great product for any DC fan. The only issue that may be had is a desire for more. Many less well known and darker characters are left out, also seemingly no character within Vertigo are present. Still a great buy.