No comments about Firefighting Toys, 1940s-1990s.

2 comments about Decorative Dollhouses.

1. Of all my miniature books, this one is the one that I always have handy. It is invaluable for the beginner and experienced miniaturist alike. The author shares hundreds of tips that are both clever and inexpensive. The photography is excellent and is especially inspirational to anyone doing a shop. Included are a grocery, fishmonger, millinery, pharmacy, bakery, hat shop, toy store, and antique shop. (I probably missed several). There are also houses and roomboxes. While this isn't a manual for particular projects, the ideas can easily be translated to your own settings. I wouldn't be without this book in my library.



2. This book is a chocolate bonbon of a dollhouse book. The pictures are wonderful, the descriptions are delightful. You'll be either green with envy of the owners of the featured houses, or inspired.

No comments about A Portfolio Primer: Teaching, Collecting, and Assessing Student Writing.

No comments about Grandma's Tea Leaf Ironstone.

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

1 comments about Collectible Glassware from the 40S, 50S, and 60s: An Illustrated Value Guide (Collectible Glassware from the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties).

1. This is another important addition to my library of collectible, kitchenware and depression glass books.

   More than 40 new patterns are included and pricing and many pictures have been updated. I like the alphabetical listing because it is easy to find the patterns I'm looking for.

   As an avid collector, I find this book invaluable in helping me pay reasonable prices for my collectible glassware.

   I would give this book a 5 star rating if it had more information on Fenton's Hobnail pattern. This pattern is often wrongly identified with other similar hobnail glass pieces and it would help me immensely if the pictured pieces showed the manufacturer's number.

   I heartily recommend this book to collectors and dealers.

5 comments about The Wonderful World of Collecting Perfume Bottles: Identification & value guide (Wonderful World of Collecting Perfume Bottles: Identification &).

1. I'm returning this book in disgust. It contains low end examples that even the newest perfume bottle collector would be bored by. In addition, some of it is poorly resaerched and some is just plain WRONG. Even the physical quality of the book is off.. the pages are strangely thin and floppy. Spend the extra money and buy a book by Jackie Jones North or the Lefkowiths...you'll find this book to be neither a good resource nor a good read.



2. What a wonderful, beautifully designed book!! It is refreshing to see coverage of ordinary bottles for the new collector and many masterpieces from the past. This broad based coverage by the author is just what was needed for the perfume bottle collecting world. Lost bottles are introduced, Sandwich masterpiece bottles are shown in all their glory. Besides coverage of many "never before shown bottles," the author seeks to educate and spark interest in the wonderful world of collecting perfume bottles



3. WOW!! Just what was needed, a general, broadbased collector book for perfume bottle collectors. This book is interesting, accurate, educational, and shows so many bottles for identification. The chapter on the Bacorn Bottles is superb, and greatly appreciated. I cannot recommend this book more highly than a five star*****



4. I was so pleased with this book. I am purchasing four more copies for my daughter and nieces. We are all new perfume bottle collectors, and this is just the book we needed to further our education in the field of perfume bottle collecting. "A GREAT BOOK BY A TALENTED AUTHOR."I hope to see more books from Ms. Flanagan in the future.



5. This is a wonderful book,however it caters mostly for the American collector.
   Regardless of this fact I am constantly referring to it. Well presented and good information.

1 comments about The Bottle Book.

1. "The Bottle Book: A Comprehensive Guide to Historic, Embossed Medicine Bottles" could have been the ultimate word on American patent medicine bottles. First, it includes a huge amount of information on the companies that produced the bottles, which were made largely in the late 19th century and continuing somewhat into the 20th century. Second, it quotes the embossed bottles themselves, usually in entirety. Third, it even provides dates for when different versions of the bottles came out. Unfortunately this book contains few color images, and only a minority of the bottles are depicted in the black and white line drawings, so the door is wide open for either another edition of this work or for another author to step forward with the "ultimate" patent medicine bottle book. Also, the subtitle should be carefully noted, as this book is strictly about medicine bottles, and does not cover ALL bottles.

3 comments about Classic Kits: Collecting the Greatest Model Kits in the World, from Airfix to Tamiya.

1. You'll enjoy this book whether you're a collector of vintage plastic kits or built models in your childhood. There are wonderful photographs of some the the older kits especially from some of the more obscure companies such as Eagle,Kleeware and Rosebud. And the coverage of Airfix, Frog and Revell is excellent. However, I was disappointed in the manuscripts for some companies as there was an inconsistency in the degree of detail. Keep in mind that the author is English and as such, the descriptions definitely have an English viewpoint. The history of Airfix, Aurora, Frog and Revell are all well chronicled in other books including the excellent review of Airfix by this same author. I would have enjoyed reading about the smaller companies who struggled mightily to exist and sell their unique model kits. I also felt that the title of this book, "Classic Kits, Collecting the Greatest Model Kits in the World, From Airfix to Tamiya" was inaccurate. Where are the gift sets and isn't it a bit premature to include DML/Dragon in this group of manufacturers? Nevertheless, this is a good addition to my library and I appreciate the quality and clarity of the photographs.



2. This book is professional to look at, but amateur hour to read.
   
   Ward loves Airfix. It showed in his solo work on that firm's kits, he was on task. The personal stories and anecdotes were on-topic, and the work was coherent.
   
   This book is...frankly....a huge mess. It's nearly impossible for me to see how it was published. First, unless you're a huge fan of Frog, or Airfix 1/72 airplane kits there's nothing here for you. Most of the companies (regardless of size, importance, or the number of kits they produced) get only a couple of pages. Frog and Airfix are the lion's share of pages here, and most of it was done first and better in Ward's book on Airfix. Also, even though Ward's "airplanes only" bias is kept somewhat in check in the Airfix book, it's rampant here. Builders of armor, autos, and ships have some pictures to look at but nothing in the way of text that is worth your time. Plus, I don't feel that I needed to pay good money to hear which companies his (non-modeler) friends and neighbors remembered. The side stories here are painful.
   
   To be fair Aurora, Tamiya, and Revell get decent coverage...problem being they get more and better coverage in single-company books by other authors. To me, the reason to get a book like this isn't to read about the kit companies you can still find represented in the local hobby shop, but to see and remember (or discover) the lost past of the hobby.
   
   Slim pickings here. Go buy some more kits instead, or back issues of vintage hobby magazines. There's no meat in this sandwich....



3. This is not a bad book, by any means, as some reviewers would like us to believe. Yes, the author is British, so most of this book deals with British brands (especially Airfix!) at the expense of US, Japanese and other countries' brands, and yes, the title misleads because this is not so much about classic kits as it is about kit brands and collecting those classic kits, but it's a very good book! I enjoyed it very much!
   
   Mr. Ward lays down the purpose of this book himself in the book's Introduction: "...the focus of the narrative is a survey of the most famous and enduring kit brands.", and not the kits themselves. Chapter 1 deals with the History and Development of model miniatures through the ages, the rise of plastic model kits after WWII, and how many companies evolved into manufacturing plastic model kits.
   
   Chapter 2 is the bulk of the book and reviews the Classic Brands of plastic model kits from their beginnings to their ultimate demise, either through acquisition by other firms or outright dissolution. For those companies still in existence he offers opinions on why they have remained in business and optimistism for their future success. Chapter 3 deals with kit Genres (military, figures, aircraft, ships, cars, etc.) and the reason many modelers choose one genre over another.
   
   Chapter 4 is devoted to Kit Collecting, or why modelers often become kit collectors by default because they buy more kits than they will ever be able to build. One collector he interviewed for the book has over 12,000 unbuilt kits in his collection! Chapter 5, The Future, offers a very short discussion of the future of plastic scale modeling.
   
   Wrapping up the book is an extensive bibliography of 15 books that deal with all sorts of modeling genres from Aircraft to Figures to Space, including his own books, "The Model World of Airfix" (1984) and "Airfix - Celebrating 50 Years of the Greatest Kits in the World" (1999).
   
   Is it any wonder that Airfix gets 36 full pages of coverage in the Classic Brands section (Chapter 2) while other companies barely get an honorable mention with a line or two of narration on one page? Mr. Ward has a definite bad case of "Airfix-ation"! To be fair, though, he does devote sixteen pages to Tamiya, eight to Monogram, six pages to Frog, and seventeen to Revell, but curiously only one to such famous brands as Hasegawa, Lindberg, Italeri and Fujimi.
   
   While his book covers many brands, there are still many omissions. Brands like Mania and Nichimo aren't mentioned at all, except in text, while a brand like Hawk, which was taken over by Testors, receives a one page spread with no mention of Testors as Hawk's successor company. Nor is there a section on Testors. It seems to me that Mr. Ward was either unaware of many of these companies at the time he wrote this book, or didn't know enough about them to include them. All it would have taken would have been a little bit more research on his part and his book could have been complete with no omissions.
   
   The real enjoyment of the book comes from the exellent full color pictures of the Classic Kit boxtops from each kit manufacturer. This book is meant to be SEEN, probably more so than to be read. But the reading is enjoyable, too. Ever wonder how FROG got its name? (Flies Right Off the Ground). Did you know that Mr. Yoshio Tamiya was in the lumber business in 1946 when he decided to exploit the market for high quality wooden model kits by turning his lumber yard into a model kit company? Were you aware that Inpact was created to capitalize on the success of the movie "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flyiing Machines" in 1966 and their 1/48 scale aircraft kits later popped up in Pyro, Lindberg, and Life-Like boxes after the company's demise? In fact, Life-Like was created to produce Adams's, Inpact's and Pyro's kits, as well as its own kit designs, and was in turn taken over by Lindberg, which began as a balsa flying models company in 1933 and produced its first plastic models in the late 1940s under the O-Lin name. All sorts of fascinating tidbits such as these appear in Mr. Ward's narrations.
   
   I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves to build plastic models, or who loves to collect plastic model kits. It's a nostalgic walk back through time and a real eye opener to the history and inner workings of the model kit industry.

1 comments about Close Cover Before Striking: The Golden Age of Matchcover Art (Recollectibles).

1. "Your Red Scarf Matches Your Eyes, You Close Your Cover Before Striking, and Loving You Has Made Me Bananas...." For the graphic artist or just fans of the visually arresting, there are some supurb images in this publication. Chronicle Books put out a book two or three years later called MATCHBOOK ART by Yosh Kashiwabara which is a nice compliment to this Abbeville Book. The Steel/Heimann book was published at a time when Abbeville was putting out a fun, funky series on American Pop culture - John Margolies MINATURE GOLF book, and the Dyer/Spark book FIT TO BE TIED: VINTAGE TIES OF THE FORTIES & EARLY FIFTIES, all of which are useful references for those in the (or into) arts/applied arts field/popular culture/or mid-century americana. The breakdown of categories in CLOSE COVER BEFORE STRIKING works well, the text (which is sparse) is very readable, and the page layout is attractive. I'd say that it would be a fine addtion to any bookshelf.