Antiques Collectibles Books

This is a very thorough history of Limoges. I did not find the pattern that I inherited, but after reading the book, I now understand why there are an amazing number of patterns.

Purchased this book as a gift for my wife, who has some Limoges dinnerware. She loved the book and has been able to identify much of her collection with its help.

If you collect Limoges Porcelain this is an excellent reference book, with a large section on marks and their dates. The colour pictures identify many patterns, along with a detailed section on manufacturers and a history of Limoges porcelain.

I purchase books online based on the reviews so lets be honest. Debby DuBay's book Antique Limoges at Home is the book to purchase. Gaston's book has terrible photographs & just can not compare to DuBay's books.

Mary Frank Gaston wrote the foreword to Debby Dubay's Antique Limoges at Home and the introduction to Collecting Hand Painted Limoges Porcelain and I'm thrilled. Two experts collaborating to give collectors all of the info they require to collect successfully. Please write a book together.

I wanted a book on gems. This is a book about Haute Couture and their designers. It does discuss types of jewels esp diamonds and pearls. It does have colour and close-ups photos but it does not tell you the difference between ruby and spinel. Also there are lots of ads. Think 4 issues of Vogue in hardcover form.
There are 4 pages devoted to cuts of diamonds. Many pages are then devoted to pearls then the famous design Houses and their gems. Lots of colour, a lot of history.

Peter Meltzer is a wine and food writer who lives on the Upper East Side and in the Hamptons. He has been "Wine Spectator's" auction correspondent for more than twenty years.

Meltzer has written a practical approach to building a fine wine collection that fits your preferences, lifestyle, and budget. He covers:

-- Buying and selling wine at auction.
-- Bidding at online wine auctions.
-- Using the Web to calculate value or locate wines.
-- Buying effectively from wine merchants.
-- Storing and enjoying wine short and long term.

The book includes the "Wine Spectator" auction index which covers over 500 frequently auctioned wines.

Meltzer emphasizes the importance of understanding what you really want to achieve from your wine collection. He urges beginners to start out buying only enough wine for the first year, and gain experience using hints from his book. The hints will be useful no matter what your objectives. He has suggestions and cautions for folks looking for bargains, and warnings for folks at the top end.

For example, Meltzer describes three sales within a few months of one another in 2004. In the first, at NYWinesChristie's, a case of the Leroy La Romanée 1953 sold for $49,350; just a month later at the same auction house, another case of the same wine sold for $19,975 and then a third sold at Acker Merrall & Condit for $17,550. He discusses the factors that might explain the differences in price, including documented storage history or lack thereof, bidder's panic, and more.

In a recent interview he points out that collectors at lower price points can benefit from buying at auction: "What's really heartening is that the market has polarized, It's the trophy wines at the top for which people will duel to the depths of their pockets, while the lower end of the price spectrum tends to be sane, sound, and accessible. You can buy off-vintages and unsung wines at below retail, often for well under $500 per lot."

Meltzer answers questions online at "Wine Spectator" in a straight forward, practical manner:

"Q: If I buy wine at auction from a reputable house and open it to find the wine oxidized or just generally shot, is that just part of the risk assumed in buying at auction, or can I ask for a refund?

"A: Auction catalogs generally stipulate that you are buying "as is," leaving you little recourse if a wine is oxidized. However, auction houses are not in the business of making enemies, and exceptions to the rule may be made. If you uncover an oxidized bottle, immediately bring it to the attention of the auction specialist and provide him with a sample to evaluate. (This won't work, of course, if it's been several years since your purchase.) As a rule, auction houses carefully inspect consignments prior to acceptance, so danger signs, such as low fill levels, inappropriate color, protruding capsules and so on, should be detected in advance, causing the lot to be rejected."

Meltzer's book is an excellent resource if you have any interest in buying wine whether at retail or at auction.

Robert C. Ross 2008

This book explained a lot about Wine Auctions, Wine Investment, and how to look for wine bargains. I was looking more for how to cellar the wine, temperatures, humdity, location, how to build the cellar (starting with wines to purchase or how to think about starting a cellar) for truly wine drinkers and it lacked this information. If you want to invest in wine, great book.

Meltzer is a veteran of the wine auctions and his tips for buying at auction are invaluable. He also provides very solid ideas as to how to start your cellar ( the actual collection of bottles, not the construction of the thing) depending on your interests, lifestyle and approach to wine.

I found it most informative because of the wealth of tidbits and asides that he adds to it. He has been around for a while and it shows. This is a book i would give to someone who wants to seiously get into wine, and i would definetly buy it again.

If you grew up as a girle-girl who just adored spending hours with your collection of paper dolls, you will recognize many of the sets of dolls presented in this wonderful collector guide.

The information and pictures are wonderful, and you will long for the dolls you played with as a kid. How I wish these collections would be reprinted today!

This is an excellent gift for yourself or a friend who shares your passion for paper doll fashion!

Very nice paper doll book. I wish someone would do some reproductions. I would like to have them in my collection.

The book is a history of paper dolls during the period indicated in the title. The paper dolls are of tv and movie stars. There are paper dolls of familiar dolls like Barbie and kewpies. The book consists of pictures of various paper dolls, some are no longer being printed. The book is colorful and interesting. It is a treasure for paper doll collectors and anyone interested in paper dolls.

During his lifetime, Henry Mercer was a lawyer, archaeologist, museum curator, promoter of lost crafts, and collector of a museum's worth (literally) of assorted stuff. One of his many interests was early American woodworking tools.

Ancient Carpenter's Tools is a comprehensive look at 18th and 19th Century American woodworking tools. The book is divided into chapters by function (Measurement, Shaping, etc.) and then by type of tool. As American tools were heavily influenced by their European ancestors, Mercer also includes a history of each tool with references to Medieval and Classical tools. Each tool is illustrated with photographs and drawings.

While this book was originally published in the 1920's (and occasionally shows its age) it remains useful for any student of tool history.

Very complete and helpful for anyone interested in finding seashells on beachs.

The title leads one to believe the information will be far more detailed than it is. I ordered it mainly to get specifics on Sanibel Island FL, but didn't find out anything I didn't already know. I would only recommend this if you're just looking for new places to go for shelling.

This is an excellent book which gives you exact locations of where to
find shells in various areas of the USA. It is written in a way that
most people can understand...it is specific and clear. While at the
New Jersey shore recently, I enjoyed finding out about the shells that
could be found in Gateway National Part at Sandy Hook. The book gives
good directions as to the locations of the shells so I would recommend
it for anyone who likes collecting.

This book will help anybody on the Eastern Seaboard find shelling spots from Maine to Florida. It is especially helpful with local customs and laws.

One of the main issues is the lack of color illustrations or even colored pictures for the shells. Instead the book relies on black and white drawings which are not as helpful to collectors.

The book does not give a true depiction of shells of the eastern coast. Areas includes are Florida, a small bay in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Cape Cod, and Maine. South Carolina, Georgia and much of North Carolina is left out.

On the other hand this book was very instructive about cleaning and properly caring for shells.

I ordered this for my husband and he absolutely loves it. He had seen it other places at a much higher price and was thrilled you had it.

Thank you.

Great book with many excellent photos and variations. A must have for any Flyer fan!

I too was waiting in anticipation for a new better written book on American Flyer. I am primarily an S gauge person, but to finally have at least the basic refreshed info on HO, and basic info on O and Wide Gauge presented again is a big bonus.

Not to put down Greenbergs works, but Greenbergs are getting very dated and the repeatative descriptions just for the sake of saying something were nausiating. David Doyle in his book, has changed the format to a much more concise format. There are a few brief paragraphs at the beginning of each chapter giving important but generalized information on the chapters subject matter. For each variation of a numbered item, they give another brief general description then list each variation with a range of values and a rarity rating. This is better than other guides that simply give an EX or LN value and move on leaving the other grades open to abuse by sellers. One word of advice to David is to stick with common item names. Calling the Box Cars, House Cars was wierd and a big turn off. Train people know them as box cars, talk about what they are familiar with, not some abscure name no one has ever heard of before.

The book is chock full of pictures, and they are new and bright and clear, not recycled from other previous publications. For the most part the photos are very well done, but some items they photograph are in poor condition and a superior example would have been easy to find. An example is the chapter on Hopper cars shows a beginning photo of a 921 CB&Q hopper, a very common hopper car, with a broken step. Other photos are of items that are covered with dust like the 283 at the beginning of the steam loco chapter. David tries I think to show photos of the scarcer versions at least half the time. I'm not sure if this was a chance thing or a deliberate move.

The chapter on paper is short, sweet and helpful. There is only so much you can say about dealer catalogs and consumer catalogs and the like. The chapter on HO is also shorter and sweeter than the S gauge chapter(s), mainly because they made so much less of it compared to S gauge. Even more brief in the overall information offered are the O and Wide gauge chapters. These are grey areas in American Flyer collecting the same as OO is for Lionel. But we rarely hear of the Lionel people complaining about the lack of material in the small OO chapters when they are included in books. American Flyer people are already complaining about the O and Wide gauge chapters, and I say leave them complain as these are small niche areas, and the book was more about the mainstay of American Flyer trains, S gauge. It is a welcome blessing to see anything on the O and Wide gauge areas with more up to date pricing so everyone into those areas should be grateful they got anything at all instead of whining. There have been other HO books put out, but they are very dated as well, and the fresher HO data was welcome, even though the amount of time spent on the chapter was not overwhelming mainly because there was no need to.

I have been into American Flyer trains since I first became congnative about the age of 4 or 5 and remember my first encounters with the train set up at Christmas. I've collected American Flyer S gauge for over 30+ years and am working on my 4th collection. I know what I've seen, and what I've not seen over 30+ years of searching and collecting these trains. With that said, I can say here what is wrong with this book. David tried very hard to avoid ambiguous information, something Greenbergs did not do. I saw only one or two examples of this in the book. One example is the alleged existance of a 293 steam loco with a whistle in the tender. This was NOT made that way. The whistle was either added by a previous owner or the tender was swapped from a different loco. But because some big time collector somewhere said it was made because it exists in their collection, so it was listed. The second example is the listing for a 290 pacific with Reading logo on the tender. This loco was never made that way. This is a tender swap by someone after the loco left the factory. This, unfortunately, is a big peril when writing a book of this type, the author is at the mercy of the collectors he asks for information from. The other big issue is with values vs truly scarce variations. As I said before, I know when a variation is tough and should demand a premium. There are several instances where a scarce variation is listed but given the common versions value. I'll give two prime examples. One would be the 24720 Civil War coach. The very earliest versions of this car are painted but do not have American Flyer Lines stamped on the car sides. In my 30+ years of collecting and searching, until about two weeks ago, I had only seen one of these cars and it was in a boxed "One of the First Fifty" sets. This car is HARD to find. Yet it was given a value of a meager $90, only $10 more than the painted version with the American Flyer Lines logo stamped on the car sides. Sorry Dave, this car is at least a $150 to $200 car. Second example would be the 625 Gulf tank car. Its hard enough to find this car without the 625G number indicating a change to Gulf from Shell. But to find the plain 625 version with the SEPX shell markings and Gulf logo is difficult to say the least. Yet David lists all variations of this car at $25. Again, this car is scarce, and is worth at least $150 or more. There are other examples exactly like this, such as the 636 spool flat with small lettering, and 934 caboose. One other item of note. In the O Gauge accessories section they show White with Red trim S Gauge items in the photos. This is incorrect. Pre-War O accessories that were carried over after the war were originally painted in Yellow (Dark Cream), with Brown trim.

Other than the issues mentioned above this is an excellent book. Well laid out, much easier to read, and it has a range of values for common people who want to deal in average grade tains instead of the high end collectors grade stuff. Photos could have been better and some of the values definately need tweeking. Over all, I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into collecting and/or operating any of the American Flyer equipment offered from the early 1900's to date.

So far this is the best book I've seen for the American Flyer collector. It has so much information and really helps when sifting through train shows and online auctions!! A must!

Standard Catalog of American Flyer Trains This is a great book that for the first time you can get all three train gauges make under the name American Flyer and/or A.C. Gilbert. Great pictures and descriptions of trains and accessories. A valuable book at a great price.

This little book is almost a treasure trove in itself. The author discusses her penchant for finding all manner of interesting bits and pieces, much of it discarded, in flea markets, bazaars, fetes and even rubbish bins on her travels throughout the world. The book itslelf is beautifully bound and reproduced, with gorgeous illustrations of bits and pieces and observations. I especially liked the chapter which tells of the punishments meted out to people who attempt to acquire a "Danger Landmines" sign in the Falklands.

But a small criticism - this would have made a wonderful, much longer book. We have only a taste of the author's penchant for the odd and discarded - I would have liked many more tales. I'll have to satisfy myself with wondering what her house looks like!

This book is so much fun; especially for those who love to loiter in dusty shop corners looking for mementos from the past...If Ephemera is your middle name, this book is for you. Ms. Hodgson takes you through years of her wanderings in world capitals and byways looking for whatever takes her fancy...things which might include old picture albumns, theater and sports stickers and tickets from the early 1900s or earlier, old containers and other cast off treasures. The only problem with this is that it's too short...More books like this, please!