4 comments about Price Guide to Holt-Howard Collectibles: And Related Ceramicwares of the '50s & '60s.

1. Highly recommend this book not only for the detailed description but also for the great color photos. Most price guides have alot of descriptions but not many photos, not this one! I enjoyed reading the description and seeing a photo. A must have for any collector



2. This is one of the best books on Figural Kitchenware of the 50's and 60's that I have seen so far. Not only great pictures, but the best information about Holt Howard Collectibles as well as nock offs. I have used my copy more than any other reference book I own on Kitchenware. Walter Dworkin can't put out another soon enough. Can't wait!



3. if you are looking for information on Holt Howard collectibles, this is the book for you. I has lots of color pictures and descriptions with specifics.



4. I ordered the book and generally liked it, but was disappointed it does NOT include all the Christmas items HH made and that this is a small section of the book.. :0

No comments about Emyl Jenkins' Southern Christmas.

2 comments about Modern Toys from Japan, 1940s-1980s (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. As a long-time collector of Japanese tin toys, I'm always eager to acquire new reference works, especially where most of the illustrations are in color. This book is ok, taking into consideration that Modern Toys Company is more or less the Budweiser of the Japanese tin toy industry. The pictures are small but quite high quality. My main reservations lie with the overwhelming number of toys from the 1970s that are pictured. As far as I am concerned, this was the nadir of their industry and most Jap tin toys made in that period are at best mediocre. They incorporate inordinate amounts of plastic, pretty crude shapes and in general are reminiscent of modern Chinese tin.
   
   I expect I'll keep the book mainly because I maintain an extensive reference library. But if you're expecting anything at all close to the superb Kitahara titles, be warned. There are a number of quality toys pictured, but not enough.
   
   Why it was necessary (given the long history of Masudaya) to provide no fewer than 20 illustrations of the 1970s Overland Express or Hill Climber trains, which came in numerous slightly different shapes and colors, I cannot imagine. This toy and its versions may excite the totally clueless dealer who finds one and puts it on Ebay as "probably 50s", but it has zero appeal to collectors. Indeed, when one is searching for "Japan Trains" on Ebay one spends most of one's time skipping over the endless examples of the Overland/Hill Climber offered for sale; which incidentally hardly ever get any bids.
   
   A large proportion of the toys in the book don't deserve coverage, I'm afraid to say. The Japanese made very few charmless toys up through the 60s, but they made up for lost time in the 70s.



2. I think this is a great book. A good selection of photos for the expert collector as well as for the beginner. Good to see reference material on items that you actually have a chance to find at a reasonable price.

1 comments about Fantasy Postcards With Price Guide: A Comprehensive Reference.

1. Mashburn writes great books, no question about it. This particular postcard guide focuses on fantasy postcards, which are a particular favorite of mine. He coveres all the basics: fairies, nursery rhymes, dressed animals, mermaids, teddy bears, Santas, Krampus, nudes, death fantasies, Halloween, Hold-To-Light, and a whole host of other types of weird and wonderful subjects.

   As well, Mashburn gives us a comprehensive history of postcards and collecting, covering the seven eras of postcards. He discusses the various types, how to date them, grade them, and value them. Since the book was written in '96, his prices do not always reflect current online auction prices, but that's understandable. My only real quibble with this book is that after reading through it and looking at the many black and white illustrations I only wanted to go out and buy more cards! A wonderful book, don't hesitate.

1 comments about The Unknown Modigliani: Drawings from the Collection of Paul Alexandre.

1. I never really had to draw artistically, but I spent years drafting mechanical objects, carefully placing straight lines in proportionally accurate positions. Having a book like this is much less embarrassing than signing up for a drawing class and having personal responsibility for drawings which don't look good, for whatever reason. The ability to draw is a major basis for art, as far as I am concerned, and a lot of the mechanics are obvious once a technique is successfully demonstrated. Anything you see in this book can be believed, and possibly even understood, artistically. This book also provides a short history in art, mainly about one person in Paris from 1906 to 1913, who had a friend who told him "Don't throw anything away." (Page 9 explains how "Paul Alexandre begged his friend not to destroy a single sketchbook, a single study.") There are, in addition to hundreds of drawings, some oil paintings reproduced in this book. On page 88 is one which was bought by the author's father because the person who commissioned The Amazon, 1909, rejected it (she might have thought that the eyes were too large; "The Baroness did not like her portrait very much and recognized herself in it still less when Modigliani decided at the last moment that he had to repaint her red jacket in yellow." p. 89), so it was purchased by Paul Alexandre.

   First, I am impressed that black and white photographs from that era can be reproduced so large and well. The people (see pages 14, 18, 20, 33, 45, 49, 51, 72, 79, 107) and places in Paris (pages 22, 36, 68, 70, 71, 81), postcards from Livorno, Modigliani's native town (pp. 108-9) and even a book by Nietzsche, Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra on page 63, fill these pages nicely. The manuscript notes reproduced on some pages are usually in French. Part of one is translated as "Equilibrium by means of opposite extremes." (p. 92). Earlier it was mentioned that Modigliani was not the type of person who kept track of things in a journal, so "these brief lines are particularly precious to us, even if, in the absence of any other documentation, we are unable to understand their full meaning." (pp. 92-93).

   Secondly, there are explanations of the elements of Modigliani's sculptures and pictures. One feature which he drew a number of times, caryatids, are defined at the beginning of a section discussing those drawings. "Another setting which is theatrical in character is created by the architectural use of caryatids in place of pilasters or columns to support the entablature of a building." (p. 189) There are foldout pages of the drawings which follow, so that, after seeing the figures on page 193, and turning to page 194, the next page which is visible is page 199, which lists the contents of pages 195-198, which are hidden until 194 and 199 are folded out to reveal the four pictures inside side by side. This might be set up this way because plate 108 shows a Hermaphrodite caryatid, frontal view, which was supposed to be hidden from anyone who didn't know where to look for it. The other ones might have been hidden because they were smiling, or too luscious, and placed there as a special reward for those who happened to be reading the book slowly enough to discover them.

   Thirdly, the next section, Sculptural heads, starting on page 237, doesn't have much to say, but the comparison of the drawings of Head in left profile runs from pages 255 to 263, without numbers on some pages. Plate 194, Head in left profile with earring; Blue crayon heightened with red gouache, is large and colorful. In the later sections of the book, there is a study with blue ink on page 368, and my favorite color in the book is the blue ink on pages 389, 390, and 392. This is, again, a series with pages that fold out, and the comparison with other pictures makes the blue particularly splendiferous. This book has 463 pages, and you need to read slowly enough to find them all.

1 comments about Contemporary Marbles and Related Art Glass (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. As a art glass collector and a marble collector, this was a great book to read! Excellent information, and beautiful pictures. A wealth of facts and well written, another work of art book by Mark Block! Looking forwards to more books!

1 comments about Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art).

1. When we lived in England, we were constantly visiting old homes, stately mansions, and castles, and were always impressed by how deep the history went, especially in the oldest, darkest oak-paneled rooms. If those panels could talk, what a rich history going back perhaps six centuries they might tell, of what had happened in those rooms, what agreements signed, what assignations made, and so on. Some of those elaborate decorations were Jacobean, others were what might be called Jacobethan. I am only now learning that plenty were Jacobogus. John Harris is an architectural historian who let me in on this sordid secret (and the new word), in _Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages_ (Yale University Press), a documentation of a part of the antique and interior decorating worlds that does not otherwise get much attention. It's a story of centuries, money, and more than a little chicanery, and Harris has covered one room and one desecration after another. It is obvious that he has done copious research, and some of the text is mere listing of owners, rooms, and prices, as if he wanted to make sure that all the data got in. The patterns of the trade, and of deception within it, are fascinating, and the large-format, glossy book has hundreds of photographs well aligned with the text.
   
   Much of Harris's book concentrates on the movements of rooms and room parts over the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but the trade had gone on long before that. Paneling was easily removed, easily reinstalled, and easily shuffled to fit into rooms of various sizes. Interior wooden paneling over walls had the same job as tapestries, to help insulate the room and keep drafts out. There were fashions in carving paneling, with some of the oldest being carved to look as if it had folds of linen on it. Thereafter, more fanciful decoration took over in the Renaissance. The French versions, called _boiseries_, were flat, broad panels with raised floral or geometric decoration around the edges, often gilt. Fashions change, and when paneling was taken off, it might be used again for a servant's room or an attic, or it might be put in storage. It could then be pulled out decades or centuries later for the express purpose of giving a room an antiquarian look. Paneling and other wooden parts were often installed in American museums, and some such rooms are careful and get Harris's praise, but other museums seemed to go gaga over rooms without a sense of curatorial judgement. Some museums joined in a spending spree for entire rooms, thereupon finding them too entire to install in entirety, or install at all. Many of them stayed crated up, and some simply became lost (there are many rooms here that no one knows where they are).
   
   The presence who enters these pages more than any single individual is William Randolph Hearst. "So prolific was he as a magpie accumulator of salvages that it is difficult to evaluate his discrimination when the vast scale of his acquisition is considered. `Collecting' implies acquisition with a collection in mind, but so mind-blowing was the scale of his purchases, so diverse and unequal the quality, so grotesque the utter lack of self-discipline, that his motivation, beyond the lust of acquisition, is baffling." A compulsive buyer, he was lucky to have the services of his architect Julia Morgan, who incorporated much of it happily in San Simeon. Hearst gathered much more than he could ever use, or even ever unpack, and in 1941 it was catalogued for sale. Harris reproduces the nine pages having to do with "buildings and parts", and if you needed twelfth century Romanesque portals or a fifteenth century Venetian door knocker, you should have been at that sale. Harris's chapter on "The Great Accumulator" winds up this comprehensive tour of a specialized and peculiar topic. His lists of accumulations become entertaining as they are coupled with tales of lucre, deception, pride, and the folly of the rich.

No comments about Warman's Elvis Field Guide.

No comments about Collectors Guide to Bookends, Identification and Values: Identification and Values.

2 comments about Art Deco Chrome (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. This is a very well done book. The pictures are very good and the text well written. Jim Linz has apparently done his homework because there is much important information to be found here. There are catalog reprints and great background information on both the major companies and the designers involved. Highly recommended.



2. Mr. Linz honors the Machine Age of Chrome and Bakelite! All the major 'players' are carefully given a great backgound and history in a chapter devoted to the companies themselves, then on to the good stuff! Devoting his written information to 'just the facts', Mr. Linz provides a very large wealth of information in a minimum amount of space. He consistently focuses on the items he is presenting, and with the color and B/W pictures provides a large and impressive array of the 'Age'. This book provided me with data I had not seen or heard of before, and as I consider myself a 'serious' and 'advanced' collector of some of these items, it is a VERY helpful resource. Thank you, Mr. Linz!