3 comments about Collectors Encyclopedia of Roseville Pottery (Collector's Encyclopedia of Roseville Pottery).

1. I purchased both the first and the second of the Roseville series by Sharon and Bob Huxford, hoping that I would get a complete guide of all Roseville pottery with prices. Unfortunately the "encyclopedia" was not complete. I guess this is how the authors sell books by not putting together a definitive book on Roseville.



2. The Huxfords are wonderful authors that have offered, collectors of Roseville Art Pottery, a basic foundation for identifying various Roseville lines. No one author [I personally author a mid-year price guide]has all the answers, but each of us attempt to add to the ongoing data base. The Huxford volumes are an essential tool for Roseville collectors and Dealers.



3. This is a well organized reference to Bush-McCoy. It contains a history of Bush-McCoy; this added knowledge adds to the fun of collecting and allow you to sound more like you know what you are doing. Then there are pages on the different "marks" of the pottery. There is a dated value guide. But I find it easer to do my own comparing. The big plus is the color pictures that show what is available. For those discriminate people that do not just buy anything that says Bush-McCoy there is an index. It is also fun to see you Bush-McCoy pieces in the book.

No comments about One to One: The Visual Culture of International Tickets.

2 comments about Longfellow's Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting, And Japan.

1. Charles Longfellow was the son of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Charles visited Japan in the 1870s intending a brief visit, and stayed for two years, returning to Boston with photos and elaborate tattoos he had 'collected' on his body. But Christine M.E. Guth's Longfellow's Tattoos: Tourism, Collecting, And Japan is not so much a survey of collectible items nor even tattoo history, as a cultural expose of Japan in the 19th century travel world. Chapters survey the state and nature of Japanese culture in the world of the times, using art and curios as a focal point.



2. This is one of the most fascinating stories I have ever read. Politically correct academics have succeeded in erasing Longfellow from the American canon, replacing him and his contemporaries with names you've never heard and will never know how to pronounce. Perhaps this bit of exotica if not to say erotica will give life back to this former pillar of American culture. It is the son, not the sage of Cambridge whom Professor Guth has chosen as her subject. But what a character he is. Longfellow Jr. had very little going for himself besides boredom and a nearly limitless bank account, so he went on an extended grand tour of the Orient, setting himself up in a Japanese harem, stocked like a koi pond which nubile Japanese maidens. Besides an addiction to Asian flesh, young Longfellow seems to have keyed into that great American pastime known as shopping with the result that he brought a warehouse full of souvenires back to fill Boston's museums and the mansions of his father's aristocratic friends. Any way you look at it, this story has legs. It's a miracle Hollywood hasn't grabbed hold of it. Stay tuned.

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 Hollow-Cast Civilian Toy Figures.

1. MUST HAVE REFERENCE BOOK FOR ENGLISH HOLLOWCAST FIGURES, PLUS A FEW AMERICAN AND FRENCH. TOP NOTCH PHOTOS AND ACCURATE PRICE GUIDES!

1 comments about Shopping Bag: Portable Art.

1. I searched high and low (mostly in book stores)over the last few years for material about collecting shopping bags, which is something I've done for many years. It feels good to finally have a resource that validates a collecting passion of mine (about which friends think I'm a little nuts). The book is filled with fabulous pictures and text that chronicle the history of shopping bags. This great volume includes notes and side bars which can be used as stepping stones to further research or gathering more information about the topic.

3 comments about Coffee With Barbie Doll (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. Amazing scenes and fun read. This book brings back memories of being young but acting grown-up.



2. The pictures are nice, and funny, mine came with a defect that made me loose on 20 of them, and I am sad. Gives you nice ideas to display your dolls, but I think the pictures could have been a little better, don't know exactly why or how. I would buy it again. There is this one cute picture with a fashion queen that has her legs up in the air that says something like " 42 more and I can then eat the brownie I baked this morning" that made me laugh! :-)



3. This book is not worth the $4.00 it sales for.

1 comments about Paul Ruscha's Full Moon.

1. I was charmed by this well written, entertaining book. I think you will be too.
   
   Created as a pictorial companion to Paul's Full Moon art exhibit at Pharmaka Gallery in Los Angeles, it catalogs many of the items in the show and introduces us to a selection of the artists (friends all) who contributed them.
   
   It's also a colorful memoir from a member of the influential California art scene - an intelligent, multi-talented bon vivant. Paul loves living - and he especially loves ART and those inventive souls who interpret it. Since his favorite people collection expands as rapidly as his objects, it's lucky for us he keeps a good diary.
   
   We get an informal biography of each chapter's subject, but the real star of these chronicles is Paul himself who describes his adventures and relationships and observations in a cheerful, candid style that feels like he's chatting with an old pal. His world is glamorous, demanding, complex and he enjoys it all. Paul is exactly the right person to be living his life. Happily, he believes in sharing.
   
   This handsomely produced volume is a pleasure to read. My only disappointment is that it eventually came to an end.

3 comments about Master Pieces: The Art History of Jigsaw Puzzles.

1. Not just for puzzle fans! A stunning presentation - famous and not famous, new and familiar art as represented in jigsaw puzzles over the years. Presented with tidbits of information scattered throughout the book, it's a pleasure to hold, to handle and to browse. I intended to buy just one for a puzzle fan friend, but now I find that I want to keep the copy I have and am buying another to give away. And, if you have any old puzzles in the attic - check it out! They may be more than lovely to look at - they may be worth something too! Beautifully indexed and edited - a real pleasure.



2. While beautiful this book was a disappointment and and the title misleading. We are sending it back.It is limited to cardboard puzzles, many of which are a "dime a dozen". The most highly valued, most complicated and sought after puzzles, solid wood and plywoood, are not included.



3. If Amazon offered EIGHT stars, this would be the book that would do it. The 500 plus puzzles shown, are simply gorgeous in full color and provide a vehicle for the true purpose of the book - a presentation of beautiful paintings as expressed on puzzles. The informative and fascinating artist biographies and collecter's value guide make this the perfect book for puzzle collectors and art lovers, alike. I was delighted by this wonderful book and find it brings more enjoyment everytime I open it.

2 comments about Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein.

1. Brenda Wineapple's SISTER BROTHER tells the story of thedevelopment of a remarkably close and rich relationship betweenGertrude and Leo Stein. Gertrude -- writer, esthetic innovator, feminist precursor-- and her brother Leo -- art collector extraordinaire, scholar manque--were a remarkable pair. From their childhood in a family bereft of its mother, through years in the heady intellectual atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Harvard and Johns Hopkins, Leo and Gertrude depended on one another and grew along similar paths. When they settled in Paris, their apartment became the center for all who wished to know about modern painting: about Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, all of whose paintings hung in profusion on their walls.

   But what hangs together-- whether brother and sister, or a great art collection -- can come undone, and it is the glory of this joint biography that Wineapple so carefully and tenderly traces the forces -- sexual appetites and obsessions, intellectual competitions, the powerful dialectic between dependence and autonomy -- which led to an absolute rupture between Leo and Gertrude, a rupture so complete that they never talked or wrote to one another again, for a period of thirty years. In those thirty years Gertrude became a central force in modern literature, while Leo subsided from the world into fad diets and unfinished projects. And yet, and yet: Wineapple does not sit in judgement, and it is the triumph of this book that Leo's many failures are as human, and as touching, and Gertrude's many successes: the reader ends up seeing ythe weaknesses of both, yet greatly admiring both.

   The subject of the book, finally, is not Gertrude and Leo, but the strange, tender, and torrential emotions that run between brothers and sisters, and the many routes through life which lead either to social failure or social success.




2. This book doesn't present any great revelations and certainly won't surprise those already familiar with the egomaniacal Ms. Stein but for anyone who has suffered the pains of sibling rifts this is any interesting read. Both brother and sister are tortured and pathetic in their own ways, Gertrude for having stubbornly believed she was a literary genius (a delusion I doubt fostered by very many today with the value of her literary contributions negligible) and Leo for having simply been a neurotic posterchild who couldn't go on with his life after their separation. This is a better book still because it does not focus on Gertrude's non-existent literary legacy but instead chooses to reveal two lives both richly interesting and complex and yet with a bitter vulnerability.