1 comments about More Board Games (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. Board games are fun! They continue to fascinate players and collectors alike, long after their lives on toy store shelves, and their appeal is rapidly growing. Demand for games has increased worldwide, with the growth of the internet fueling the collector market. This completely new book presents over 1100 new color photographs of your favorite board games, from Battleship to Monopoly, and from Air Mail Pilot to Zap!. It includes an informative text, more vintage advertisements, and current market prices. There is a special chapter on Remco Industries, which had a small but sought after output of games in the 1950's and 1960's. MORE BOARD GAMES continues where the author's first book, BOARD GAMES, left off, and should ideally be used together. They are sure to satisfy the game-playing appetites of collectors, dealers, and enthusiasts everywhere.

2 comments about American Dimestore Toy Soldiers and Figures (Schiffer Book for Collectors.).

1. This is one of the best books written on the subject in years! It is very detailed and full of color photos of these great old toy soldiers. If you have this book and Richard O'Briens...thats all you need as a resource on the subject!



2. This is one of the best books written on the subject in years! It is very detailed and full of color photos of these great old toy soldiers. If you have this book and Richard O'Briens...thats all you need as a resource on the subject!

No comments about Pictorial Price Guide of Marbles (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

No comments about The Pistner House ... A Master In Miniature.

5 comments about Mego Action Figure Toys.

1. Nice overview of Mego's product lines. Not much commentary, detail or background information on the company or the toys it produced. Photographs could have been larger and cleaner. I would point out that if you are a fan of Mego's World's Greatest Super-Heroes Line, in particular, I would suggest you look to Benajmin Holcomb's book ("World's Greatest Toys"), which has much better coverage and incredible photography.



2. I enjoyed this book quite a bit (couldn't put it down until I read it cover to cover as a mater of fact). It provides a lot of useful information, and I would consider this book a MUST for any Mego collector (though I'm not sure the latest edition is necessary). If I could make one change to this book, I would make it more of an "action figure archive" or "reference guide" and less of a price guide. It would have been very useful if the book spent more time telling us everything about each figure, including variations and accessories (kind of like the Mego Museum does), that would have made this a GREAT book. Also, this book seems to slight the WGSH figures a bit (i.e., not as much information or pictures about them as about the other figures). Don't get me wrong, I still found this book to be very useful and well worth the money (i.e., it did a lot of what I hoped, just not everything). In short, knowing what I know now, I still still buy this book, and I would encourage anyone interested in Mego figures to do the same.



3. If you are into Mego this is the book for you! Between this full color book and the authors toy collection web site (listed in the book at WWW.MEGOHEADTOYS.COM) the world of Mego is 100% covered! A must have especially if you are into Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, The Wizard of Oz and Super Heroes!



4. When I opened up this book, it spoke to me. It said "This book is for you." I took one look at it and suddenly my childhood came flooding back all over again. Back to when Christmas was magical and there were two mego boxes waiting for me under the tree. By far, this is the most comprehensive mego book on the market. Trust me, I've bought them all. The day this book arrived in the mail changed my life. No serious mego collector should be without one. Use it as a personal checklist, or as a book to remind you of when toys were "cool". Not only does it have all the toys I remembered, but everything I always hoped would have made. Crammed full of an entire museum worth of mego toys, this book has everything from foreign exclusives to unproduced prototypes and production artwork. All the informative stories within are just priceless. I dare anyone to find a more comprehensive mego guide anywhere. There just isn't anything that compares to it. I only wish it could be longer. I just couldn't get enough. If it could be twice the size, I would gladly pay whatever price necessary. This is the book I see people using at all the toy shows. All over the world, this is the book Mego collectors and sellers use. Every up to date Mego discovery is there. When I think Mego, John Bonavita is the man. I have bought every edition and John has never let me down. There's always something amazing. All I can say is keep it coming! I hope Schiffer goes into FOURTH printing, just so I can see what new discoveries John has turned up! Go get'em John, "COLLECT'EM ALL!"



5. Here is the second edition of John Bonavita's Mego action figure guide. The book's cover, which was questionably plain in the first edition, is repeated here with a different background color. This new guide is supposed to be revised and updated, but the only thing I see different are the enormously inflated values on many of these figures. I can count a handful of pictures that are actually new to this edition. I was looking forward to this book as I am an avid Mego collector, but I cannot express to you how disappointed I was in this revised edition. Everything is virtually the same. Some figures are curiously overpriced. (Example: a prototype that is valued at 6000.00, yet it is the only one and has never been sold - where does that value come from?)If you have the first edition of this book, it is enough for you to have some good reference, but this second edition is a total waste of money.

5 comments about Classic 80s Home Video Games: Identification & Value Guide.

1. There has been some confusion about this book, caused by what I can only hope are unintentional misstatements concerning the book's content, so I'm here to clear up as much as I can.
   
   There are 7 systems featured in this book: Atari 2600 VCS, Atari 5200 SuperSystem, Atari 7800 ProSystem, Coleco Vision, Intellivision, Odyssey2 and Vectrex.
   
   The book does provide a comprehensive overview and visual guide to all the games listed. As boxes, manuals and cartridges usually all feature the same artwork during this period, we made sure we showed at least one of the three for every title, so you could see what you should be looking for (usually the box and/or cartridge).
   
   This first version of this book focuses only on U.S. production releases. As we did not have an unlimited page count, we chose to focus only on the material most American consumers would have come in contact with at the typical U.S. retail store in the 1980s.
   
   There are 1059 boxes shown, 934 cartridges, 154 overlays, 163 photos of merchandise (some photos show more than one item), and another 154 assorted photos, such as: magazines, Activision patches, catalogs and other supplemental material. That's 2435 painstakingly selected photos for those keeping track (I could be off by a handful, I kept losing my place!)
   
   The introduction does contain an offer to purchase collections in the section that lists our contact information. However, the book is not littered with solicitations as has been suggested. There are several rare items where we note "If you have this item, please contact us." This notation is for research purposes. Because there is so little sales history for some items, we need more information on them. How did you acquire the item? Is it from your childhood collection? If so, what materials were included with the game? How much did you pay for the item? And so on.
   
   Each chapter is color coded to visually separate the sections for each console. The title of the console also appears in the margin to make it easy to find the chapter you are looking for. Each console has an introduction that explains more about the console's history, followed by cartridge variation listings. Cartridges are listed in alphabetical order, by manufacturer, so they are easy to locate. Listings feature prices for the cartridge, manual, additional inserts, and a boxed, complete value, and list specific visual markers to help identify variations. At the end of each chapter are merchandise listings, with console listings first, followed by related merchandise. All of the related merchandise is listed in alphabetical order so you can locate them by the name printed on the item or package. As the majority of collectors focus on the games, not the joysticks, we chose to maximize the photos in the cartridge sections, and show a representative sampling of pictured items in the merchandise listings.
   
   The layouts vary by chapter because the size of boxes and cartridges vary by console, so it's not possible to make a square and a rectangle look the same without manipulation. The Atari 2600/7800 cartridges are rectangles, Atari 5200 cartridges are square, etc. Sometimes these changes in box, cartridge or overlay dimensions affected the overall layout for their chapter, although the changes are slight and the overall look is consistent throughout. The layouts have all items arranged on the page in alphabetical order as well, unless the material on the page prevented this arrangement. To maximize which variations are shown, you may see a box shown with a variation cart, overlay or other insert. Where possible, multiple variations are shown to provide a better visual picture of the variations.
   
   The book was very methodically and deliberately arranged to provide as much visual information as possible. The book is full, but is not crammed. Everything shown was placed on purpose and as visually pleasing as possible. We wanted to show as much as possible without being visually distracting.
   
   Jason has collected video games for more than 15 years, and I have collected for about 5 years now (plus an additional 4 years when I was a teenager). He has owned his store for 7+ years, so he has actual sales data which aided us in determining values. Economic conditions change so any price guide is always a starting point, but we were very thorough and deliberate in our pricing decisions. Luckily we didn't value the price of gasoline anywhere in the guide.
   
   We did not list game play information for each title as there was simply no room to do so. Additionally, the game play is essentially the same for a single title across consoles, so a lot of space would be wasted in duplicating text. If you are looking for game play, the manuals are your best source. For many titles, the book "ABCs to the VCS" is an excellent and affordable source of material for this information.
   
   We worked very hard to make this a very usable guide and Jason and I are both very proud of the results. Our greatest compliment about the book was given to us on April 6 of this year when Harry Rinker, the host of the syndicated radio show "Watcha Got" called our book one of the most detailed price guides he has ever seen. I agree, but I might be biased, so check out his website and listen to the interview yourself (we're about 30 minutes into the program). Video Game Trader Magazine recently reviewed the book as well and said, "None of the other guides on the market have such great color pictures and comprehensive details and data which is what makes this book standout above the competition". See for yourself in their online #7 issue. You can see excerpts in their #8 issue, also available online.
   
   Thanks to everyone who has purchased the book so far and for your compliments on the material. Watch for the next volume which is currently in the planning stages.
   
   And, last but not least, A very special thank you to those in the collector community who provided supplemental material. You will find all of their names listed in the acknowledgements.



2. I really liked the large color photos in this book. The actual prices listed are something to be debated, but overall this book delivers. It does not include alot of lesser known 80s systems like the Vectrex



3. These two guys really did a good book. It has lots of pictures to go with it. The book does not describe each game as this is not it's purpose. This is solely a selling guide.



4. The one thing in this book's favor is its price, which renders criticism of it somewhat moot. At a glance, the guide offers relatively comprehensive coverage, but as one digs into the content offered, the beauty of the photo spreads is mostly skin deep. Although nearly all game titles presented within are documented with photographs, far too many items are only partially illustrated (e.g. only a cartridge, but not the accompanying manual or original packaging). Given that the authors could have reached out to the collecting community to obtain photos of the missing items, each absence adds up to an inexcusable shortcoming for a field guide. More troubling are entire product ranges that go unmentioned (e.g. the double-ended cartridges Xonox produced for the ColecoVision) and the rather slipshod presentation of non-game materials for each system, such as peripherals and third-party accessories. The latter are listed in bulk at the end of each section, often without photos, and in alphabetical order rather than categorized by item type. Much to-do is made of variants in packaging cataloged within its pages, but here, too, the information is scattered and incomplete, despite appearances that comprehensive research has been done. General layout of each section can at times be equally haphazard, but for the most part works.
   
   Perhaps the greatest weakness of this work is the effort made to assign valuations to items for collectors. In some cases, the information is accurate. However, by and large, the dollar values appear to be assigned with no attention paid to real-world transactions, instead being plucked from the imaginations of the authors or thinly-veiled formulae (e.g. manual prices are near exclusively assigned as a fraction of "complete" specimen prices, which is an altogether mistaken methodology). In some cases, prices are assigned for portions of games that go beyond reason (e.g. per-token pricing for Odyssey 2 board/video games). These are all common traps for collecting guides, and despite assurances that both authors have deep experience with the field, there is little evidence that either managed to overcome personal bias in assigning values. It would have been better to leave the book as an identification guide than to stretch its authority to (poorly) cover individual game pricing. Moreover, it doesn't help matters much that the book itself is littered with pleas from the authors to contact them to sell them your games. Absent independent research, this work should not be trusted as an authority on the valuation of video games of the era.
   
   [...] the guide is also plagued with authorial bias in its summaries of each system and their merits. It would have proved more profitable to devote more space to the history and nature of each system and less to editorializing about which is better than the other. There's a certain amount of hubris involved with the authors' undertaking here, evident from the front and back cover illustrations. What's on display are the gems of a collection, and not the games that would be familiar to someone who might have owned any of the systems covered back in the 80's. The desire to show off the holdings of the authors should have been tempered to broaden appeal of the work, but again, this is a pitfall common to the field.
   
   In sum, this is a fair first effort that tries to cover too much ground to its detriment. For the price, it's a somewhat useful identification guide. Beyond the photos, though, there isn't ample evidence that the book can be trusted as a value guide or comprehensive catalog. Perhaps a later edition will address these problems, but until the authors rein in the exuberance they have for their favorite systems and personal collections and draw upon the larger collecting community to both broaden and deepen coverage, I fear that one can only hope for the fiddling of a number here and there and not much else.



5. Classic 80's Home Video Games is a fantastic pictorial guide of all things the classic video game collector could ever want. Full color photos, prices for loose game, manual and box, along with descriptions of all known variations of said games. This guide doesn't bog down in text descriptions like other guides seem to do, rather, Jason and Robert let the large, beautiful, full-color photos speak for themselves.
   
   The guide also includes some items either glossed over or completely ignored by other guides. Peripherals, patches, posters, catalogs, they are all in there, and all in full color photographs.
   
   I highly recommend this guide, whether you are a new collector just starting out, or a longtime pack rat such as myself. For the price, it really can't be beat.

2 comments about Rubber Duckie.

1. Even though the book talks about the research that went into making a rubber duck that floats upright, this one doesn't. I have to really work at it to get to float correctly as most of the time it just falls on to it's side.
   
   I'm not happy with it.



2. I have been a rubber duck fan since I was a kid, and this little book - that comes complete with its own collector duck, just touched my heart. I have a new grandson and I am starting him out right in the best of bath traditions!

   Collecting rubber ducks has taken on quite a cashe way beyond the original child's toy, and Jodie Davis's book gives a through duckumentary on all stages of the charming little fellow through the ages. Loved it! Sue Ann Taylor

2 comments about McDonald's Happy Meal Toys in the U.S.A. (Schiffer Book for Collectors With Prices).

1. Great book, very complete and convienen. It has a price guide and check-off boxes to help you to keep better track of you collection. I will not ever begin to estimate the number of photo's..There is easily 1000's



2. I consider this to be the McDonald's collector's premier guide. Full-color photos show you exactly what you're looking for. Variations are also listed, and usually shown, so you'll know to look for that horse with a green base and without! Translites, buttons, and all the other items associated with a promo are listed with values. Although this book only goes through early 1995, you can order supplements by writing to the author (address included in the book). If you're serious about collecting (or selling) McD's Happy Meal toys, you must have this book

5 comments about Tomart's Price Guide to Johnny Lightning Vehicles.

1. This is a great resource for JL's up to 2001. Good history of the company from the original topper era to the Playing Mantis era. A must have resource for anyone collecting Johnny Lightnings.



2. This wasn't for me, I gave it to my husband for his birthday. He loves it. Likes the pictures and likes how you can see the value of the cars as well as the Johnny Lightening Whites. He also uses it as a check list to mark off which ones he has already collected.



3. i'll give my review after i received the item .
   many thanks
   
   
   ari



4. This is a slick and attractive book, and I suppose great if you're into collecting the modern Playing Mantis Johnny Lightning cars, but there's precious little here on the original vintage JL cars: only two pages of photographs. At least you get a picture of each of the original cars.
   
   So, my three star rating probably reflects my disappointment both in the descriptions I read here as well as the book it self. It's almost useless to me as a vintage JL collector.



5. This book is everything I expected and more. Being a true J/L fan I appreciate the descriptions and color photos. One thing I noticed is it needs to be updated some what. But its an excellent resource if you are into selling,buying,or trading!!!!

5 comments about The Barbie Closet: Price Guide for Barbie & Friends Fashions and Accessories, 1959-1970.

1. If this book wasn't good. it wouldn't go for so much. I was just reading posts on the Barbie club Bulliten board that say most Barbie people do not find Amazon reviews helpful because lots of folk post Amazon reviews of products they know nothing about just to have high posting numbers. Frankly that's just plain stupid.This book goes for so much because hard-core Barbie collectors find it valuable. I lost my copy in a fire and deeply regret that I can't afford to replace it. I am hoping it will somehow find it's way back into print again .



2. OK, if you have: the 2 volumes of Sarah Eames and the Ultimate Barbie Book, then you don't need this book. It is nice in a way that fashions are presented on dolls and the dolls are presented by themeselves and described. Also the prices for the individual items are listed (and they are close to ebay prices / and prices I have heard from other collectors). Yet like the other buyer said close ups are blurry and some fashions have no pictures. I didn't find the picture's backgrounds distracting, but that is a matter of opinion. If you have the books listed above don't waste the money this one is worth. I have found several errors, mostly on the names and some acceosries, but nothing really big. I found it to be nice and I am glad I bought it, but if you are tight on money and you just want a good, easy, compact, fast, reference book get the other 3 better, with the money left you can buy some barbies!



3. I really loved this book and found it very helpful in pricing accessories as well as the outfits. It also shows pictures of everything that came with the fashion which is very helpful if you want to complete an outfit. Great for the buyer or seller. It's so interesting seeing the tiny and very detailed accessories I had'nt known even existed. I just found it to be a great reference book. If you are buying a vintage piece this book helps you know if you're paying a fair price or maybe getting a great deal.



4. Money better spent buying Sarah Eames' Barbie Fashion books. This one added nothing and fell short in some respects. Photographs are often poor and close-ups blurry and grainy. Some things had no pictures, just a name and list of items. There are also some errors. And, I realize this is a matter of opinion, but the dolls seemed ackwardly posed in many photos, which is distracting for a reference book. Sorry I couldn't rate it better.



5. I love the pictures and the wonderful way the dolls are posed -- some of the shots are good enough that they look like they're alive! Other pictures are a little darker, but overall the photography is good.

   The only complaint I have is that the book has some annoying little errors -- like "Gold Rush" is listed as a Skipper outfit! And the misspellings like "bow" for "beau" detract a little from the professional image.

   But these errors are relatively minor and overall this is a good book to have to identify some of the more difficult-to-find outfits and accessories!