5 comments about Marx Toys Sampler: A History & Price Guide.

1. This brand new (year 2000)192 page book gives you an inside look at one of America's favorite toy makers. It takes you behind the scenes at Marx to help you see and understand the company and its people. There is a beautiful 32 page full color section, in addition to more than 150 black and white photos. Many of the photos have not before been published. More than 1,200 individual items are listed, including many values. Major topics range from Play Sets, Doll Houses, Lithographed Items, to Johnny West, and Sandy Dolls. A Marx time line from 1896 to 1999 is provided along with a handy index. Toy collectors will be delighted with this new reference.



2. This book would be a great companion book. Most Marx toys collectors would benefit from information on part numbers, years of production and viewing the wonderful selection of photographs featured in the book. The book covers about 30 years worth of knowledge on toys produced at the Glen Dale plant site. There is even a partial price listing on items that Ms. Smith and Mr. Whipkey were familiar with. All in all. A good book.



3. I found this to be an ideal route to fond memories of my childhood. Many of the toys in this book were basis of several Christmas dreams. As a baby boomer, I have been collecting the dollhouses and furniture with the hope that my granddaughter will appreciate them, too! This is a good reference guide to have!



4. I enjoyed this book because of it's detailed accounts of Marx toys that I grew up with. The price guide is also handy when I'm out looking for Marx items for my sisters' collections. History of a manufacturer is always interesting and the photographs help define the pieces I'm searching for. I appreciate a good book that shows great effort extended in presenting the information. I would recommend this book to the serious toy buyer and to new seekers of antique Marx toys. Kudos to the author!



5. What a wonderful trip down Memory Lane! I had a couple of uncles that worked for Marx when I was a little kid and had many of the toys featured in Michelle's book. I can only wonder what happened to my Mark toys. I guess they found their way to cousins or younger friends, but I sure would like to have them back now! Good job Michelle - I truly enjoyed paging through your book - it appears to have been a labor of love as opposed to a for profit project. Thanks for the memories!

4 comments about The Ultimate Fruit Label Book.

1. John A. Baule's The Ultimate Fruit Label Book is a gorgeous representation of fruit labels from the late 1800s to the early 1960s: the heyday of millions of bright, colorful paper labels used by fruit growers to catch the eye and advertise their produce. This isn't just a value guide, though: over 1,700 color images are listed alphabetically and including stock and private labels from grows and associations alike, along with histories of major fruit companies and collecting hints. The result is a gorgeous presentation and a 'must' for any with more than a casual interest in fruit labels.



2. This book should have an expanded title: "...from Washington's Yakima Valley". Shoppers beware! There are no citrus fruit labels displayed within the book. It seems odd that the title would claim to be the "ultimate" without including citrus fruit, hence the need for a different title. Othwerwise, the book is a treasure of wonderful works of art beautifully displayed with lots of historic information.



3. I went through a phase where I collected fruit box labels. I enjoyed the imagery and the sense of nostalgia. These labels harken back to a simpler, more rural and natural time. You can just feel yourself relaxing as your eyes gaze over the images from our largely bygone agricultural America. I've since moved on to collecting rock concert posters, but it was from fruit box labels that I learned my love for beautiful, idyllic imagery. This book will have you immediately yearning for eating a juicy apple in a grassy, flower-saturated meadow alongside a frolicking maiden, so stock up on those. The apples, that is.
   
   As someone else has mentioned, this book is primarily about produce from Washington state. I'd say it is about 90% dedicated to apples, and there are some pears as well. There are about six pictures per page, so they are small images, but they are still large enough that you can enjoy the image and feeling. I do wish there were a few full-page images, just to shake things up visually a little. This almost feels like a catalog in certain respects. And, there is actually quite a bit of image redundancy, due to the fact that the same image was used on several labels with minor derivations in peripheral details. For a collector this might be extremely valuable so you can identify diffferent versions of a given label image.
   
   You definitely don't have any citrus portrayed here, and I don't think there is anything from California or Florida. So "Ultimate" is clearly hyperbole. The book is lacking in a type of dimension I had hoped it would have. This is basically a book with a lot of beautiful pictures of apples. To me, that's still a good thing, as far as it goes.
   
   The print quality here is first rate, just splendid. Paper quality is first rate.
   
   So far, I'd still give the book five stars. My gripe?? The absolutely cheap and disgraceful shiny cardboard cover they put on the book. This is the kind of cover which you find on a child's Dr. Suess book, not a label collector's book which itself should become a collectible. Really, such a major mistake: someone's head should roll at Schiffer Publishing. And, look at the price: for this price you should get a book which will last for generations. Instead, they sell you a book which almost certainly will be in tatters in a few years if it get any regular use at all. Given the low quality cover and binding, this book should be priced at about one-third its current asking price.
   
   The art of bookbinding and book-making seems to be going the way of the American automobile. This book represents the Ford Pinto-fication of the American book publishing industry. Huge, horrible corners cut, with some scheming conniver just hoping we won't notice the down-grading of quality. You will. At this price, I suspect you wouldn't buy this book if you were to see it at a bookstore. The compromise in cover quality is grossly conspicuous.
   
   I think of books as investments. I'm willing to pay more for quality, and I think of it as a nice, simple heirloom for my children, from which they may learn to share some of my interests. But here, you get a cheaply manufactured product, where some concession was made which ruined the whole, wonderful concept that someone (the author,namely) probably poured years into developing. Regardless, for this price, I want a first-rate book. And, quite frankly, I don't want any cheaply made books in my personal library. Books should be--and always have been, until recently--objects of art. Cheaps bindings destroy that concept.
   
   I'm a huge fan of Amazon, but I'm recommending to them that they have binding designations to indicate "cloth" so we can distinguish the hardbacks between quality and junk. This book begs for a cloth binding, and I'm saddened that it--and we--did not get that.



4. Hard to fathom why "The Ultimate Fruit Label Book" would have ZERO orange crate labels.
   What is the author's rationale for this HUGE omission?
   He was obviously aware of it, so how could he have okay'd such a title?
   It's a wonderful APPLE LABEL book -- which makes the title all the more unfortunate
   Jim

5 comments about Goldmine 45 Rpm Picture Sleeve Price Guide.

1. I found this book to be a valuable source of information for the novice as well as the experienced record collector. This book encompasses many musical generes and I find it invaluable source before heading off for those record collecting shows. This book is layed out well, nice to look at, and has almost anything you could think of in it. A must have!



2. I enjoyed the large amount of illustrations and the nice color section. A broad range of musical genres is covered and is the most complete and detailed cataloging of sleeves to date.



3. One of the few good things MTV did for music was that it encouraged record companies to put out more 45 r.p.m. singles with picture sleeves. So for the same price as 45's that just came in standard sleeves (like the black one that just says "Columbia" at the top in thick white letters for example), you'd get a color (usually) picture of the artist (usually). Sometimes they were less interesting, maybe only showing the logo for a movie the song was from, like the hits from `Xanadu'. Often the records were only issued with a sleeve regionally or for just a fraction of the single's general release. Which of course, makes those sleeves rare and the object of irrational collectors' desire. This book shows, however, that picture sleeves were around since the beginning of the "Rock Era" (circa 1955) and before. Plenty are pictured, some rare and many not so rare.

   Who knew that the sleeve to Bob Seger's tacky "Horizontal Bop" from 1980 is worth $80 bucks to some people? Or that people are actually looking for the sleeve to "Nightbird" by Stevie Nicks even though the song itself isn't hard to find? Yet I remember having trouble finding Huey Lewis' "The Power Of Love" from "Back To The Future", and it's hardly worth anything. Ditto for "The Lady In Red" by Chris DeBurgh.

   There are several guides to records that include information on picture sleeves, but this is the only one I know of that focuses exclusively on sleeves. Great for those with general interest in record collecting, or to see if you've managed to save something that's actually worth something ("Gee, I wonder if this sleeve for the Stones' `Street Fighting Man' is worth anything?"). Obviously of more interest to collectors, but enough pictures to entertain a more general audience.




4. Pricing guides are great fun to have, yet they are so negligible since they become outdated within a year or so. This 45 record sleeve price guide bears the Goldmine name and boasts more than 10,000 entries, but having been released in 1998, one can't help wondering where the next edition is (*update: revised edition is in the works!). Compiled by Charles Szabla, the book does have some minor errors (the punk group Courtney Love has nothing to do with Hole's lead singer, nor does the semi-Satanic group Coven have anything to do with Ozzy Osbourne of Black Sabbath) and some of the entries are suspect. Still, there are great pic-reproductions here and information you can't get anywhere else (the Seeds put out a plastic sleeve?! in 1968?!). Very useful still to this day. B+



5. ".....EASY TO USE AND FUN TO BROWSE, THIS BOOK COVERS 40 YEARS OF POPULAR MUSIC:
   * Pop
   * Rock
   * Alternative
   * Country
   * R & B
   * Jazz
   * Blues
   * Comedy
   * Movie & TV Soundtracks
   * And much more!....."
   [from the book of the back cover]

1 comments about Collector's Encyclopedia of Occupied Japan Collectibles (Collector's Encyclopedia of Occupied Japan).

1. I cannot say enough good things about any of these reference books. My husband and I have learned so much from this material. I will not even purchase a piece until I find it in one of Gene's books. The pictures are beautiful and each piece has an updated value from 1999. What more could and OJ collector want. I would recommend this to anyone who is a serious collector of Occupied Japan. The investment for the book is worth it a thousand times over.

1 comments about Japanese Toys: Amusing Playthings from the Past (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. One of the best books ever written on Post war toys from Japan. Beautiful color photos of toys and their boxes, along with production dates and quantities, dimensions, description of actions, scarcity ratings and values. Patent drawings and illustrations are included for many toys. This book contains the most extensive listing of Japanese toy trademarks I have ever seen. I have been collecting Japanese tin toys for 35 years and this listing alone makes this book invaluable.

No comments about Art for Work: The New Renaissance in Corporate Collecting.

2 comments about Tribal Rugs: A Buyer's Guide.

1. If you wouldn't know a Kilim if it bit you in the leg, you'll soon be able to do a lot more than just bluff your way in the world of rugs! This book takes you through it all quite painlessly!

   Beautifully illustrated with full colour pictures of rugs from all around the world, it is a pleasure to leaf through as much as to read for its detailed information on what makes these wonderful rugs what they are.

   Maps, texts and illustrations take you through the cultural and practical aspects of rug design and manufacture. For the professional dealer or the enthusiastic amateur like me, this is an indispensable book! Anyone who has read it will know how much better equipped they are to snap up the best buys with confidence.




2. ...I disagree with the author saying that "every rug needs a degree of breathing space". I realize that is a Westernized viewpoint, and tastes vary...but these beautiful one-of-a-kind works of art were originaly intended to cover a tent floor...to the point of overlapping at times ! My preference is to see them in close proximity to each other, a glorious mosaic of rich color and design.
   I also disagree with the statement that the rug has to "match its surroundings", which is like buying a painting to match the sofa. To my way of thinking, a piece of art, whether a painting or rug, should give one an uplifting thrill, not "match" something.

   The first 4 chapters are on everything from detailed descriptions of how rugs are made, where to buy them, their care and repair, and the ethnic groups worldwide that make them.
   This is followed by brilliantly colored illustrations of 44 rugs and 3 bags, from the marvelous Belouch animal design that graces the cover to a Navaho pictorial flatweave.

   Chapter 5 is about the designs, and how to identify them. Chapter 6 is on the regions (maps are included). 7 and 8 are on the tribal groups, from those in Adraskand, to the Yurks, and describes the patterns, colors, and quality produced by each group.

   So though I don't agree with the decorating ideas, it's 5 stars for the research and remarkable detail that has been put into this volume. It's an excellent primer, as well as a good reference book.

1 comments about Wallace Nutting and the Invention of Old America (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art).

1. Though I didn't see the show for which this book serves as a kind of catalogue, my enjoyment of it isn't limited to that. I don't know much about the Colonial revival in American culture, and this book is a splendid introduction to the ways in which our present-day culture have been modelled and molded by a series of cultural enterpreneurs like Nutting, for history is invidious and in the post-modern condition we can no longer distinguish between what is "real" and what is the simulacrum. Nutting saw clearly how through mass production he could disseminate his own vision of what colonial New England history was like, in ways that would reinforce his own prejudices towards nationalism, etc., while gibing with his genuinely moving and democratic feelings towards beauty akin to the Arts and Crafts movement of the UK and the USA of a slightly earlier date. Thomas Denenberg has all the facts and figures at his fingertips--he's a wonderful companion and never allows the readers to lose sight of the overall picture amid the myriad pleasues of Nutting minutiae. I'll have to find out more about American historiography, especially if it's this deliciously presented.

5 comments about The Girl in the Green Glass Mirror.

1. I had grabbed this book while passing thru a bookstore out of sheer desperation for something to read, and it has turned out to be a wonderful literary surprise. The author brings her characters to life, even the artist, Dadd, takes on a whole new meaning. I'm now anxious to learn more about him. But even more, I am looking forward to reading more of Elizabeth McGregor's books. She has an extraordinary talent in keeping readers interested, even as the story of both Dadd and the primary characters changes from one minute to the next.
   
   I strongly recommend this for a really good read.



2. Received in a very timely manner, book was new and I certainly enjoyed reading it. I would buy from this vendor again.



3. This may possibly be a good book - I found it so boring I gave up after reading only a third of it. Maybe I missed the good part. Although I am a compulsive reader (who ELSE reads the side of cereal boxes?), I couldn't force myself to finish it.



4. I read this for our bookclub. I am a fan of Richard Dadd and was looking forward to this book. I was disappointed, however. The characters are not particularly sympathetic and the two parts of the book (the ongoing romance between John and Catherine; Helen's sinking pathetically into serious mental illness; Catherine and Robert's peculiar breakup--intercut with the peeping into Richard Dadd's psyche) just didn't work really well as an integrated whole. The pace was a bit slow, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though the ultimate payoff did not make it worthwhile. Not a terrible book by any means, but not very memorable. If you are interested in Dadd, by all means take a look.



5. A great book by an author I knew nothing about previously. Wonderful characterization, beautiful descriptive detail, and a great story line. I loved the inclusion of some art historical elements as well.

No comments about Emily Hall Tremaine: Collector on the Cusp.