3 comments about Collector's Encyclopedia of Weller Pottery.

1. This is the only book I know of that is dedicated solely to Weller pottery. It includes a very detailed history of Wellers conception and demise. A section on the prominent Weller artisans and all the known markings of the pottery is very helpful.

   The main reason I bought this book though is for the color photographs of the different Weller lines. They are beautiful and it makes identifying pieces much easier. Besides a copy for myself I also gave one to my Mother-in-law for her birthday. We both love it!




2. This book was very helpful to me - I just started collecting Weller pottery since the beginning of this year. Although this book couldn't possible have every piece of Weller pottery photographed or drawn it is still a very useful and appreciated guide for any Weller collector. I am very pleased with my copy and would recommend it to anyone considering starting to collect Weller pottery or interested in placing a "ballpark" value on their Weller collectibles. There are some beautiful Weller pieces out there available for the discerning collector - with this book you are an educated collector. Good luck and enjoy collecting some Weller pottery - maybe our paths will cross?



3. Weller Pottery
   1872-1948
   Fultonham & Zanesville Ohio
   
   Weller Timeline
   
   April 12, 1851 Samuel Augustus Weller born in Ohio
   1872 Operates a one-man pottery in Fultonham, near Zanesville in Muskeegum County, Ohio
   1882-1890 Expansion to Zanesville, followed by building, buy-outs until 1931 when the Depression forces consolidation and down-sizing
   1893-1896 William Long's Lonhuda ware, Louise Weller and Louwelsa born, 1896
   1897 Henry Schmidt develops Weller Turada, the first squeezebag pottery line in the Ohio valley, Owens Pottery introduces similar Cyrano line in 1898
   1895-1904 Charles Upjohn heads Weller decorating department, develops Dickensware II in 1900
   1902-1907 Jacques Sicard at Weller, Sicard line appears in the fall of 1903; (Clement Massier Reflets Metalliques by 1889)
   1902-1905 Weller becomes world's largest pottery and maker of mass produced Art Pottery
   1903-1904 Frederick Hurton Rhead at Weller, develops Jap Birdimal line in 1904, becomes Roseville's first art director in 1904, leaves Roseville in 1908
   1904 Weller has huge display at the St. Louis Exposition
   1908 Rudolph Lorber develops Dechiwo, 1908, which leads to Burntwood, Claywood, and others
   1917 Weller Hudson family introduced
   1916-1929 Rudolph Lorbor develops Brighton birds, Muskota, Woodcraft, Forest, Glendale and other great naturalistic lines, ending with Coppertone, 1929. Dorothy England Laughead creates Silvertone, Chase, and the Garden Animals
   1920-1924 John Lessell heads the decorating department, develops luster glaze lines including LaSa, Marengo, Cloudburst, Lamar, others
   July 1, 1922 Weller Pottery incorporated as "S.A. Weller, Inc."
   October 4, 1925 Samuel Augustus Weller dies
   1925-1932 Nephew Harry Weller takes over as president, introduces continuous kiln, consolidates plants in 1931 due to Depression, dies in auto crash in 1932
   1930-1932 Last freehand decorated lines introduced at Weller: Stellar, Geode, Cretone, Raceme, Bonito
   1932-1937 Frederic Grant, son-in-law, is president for one year, divorced from Ethel (Weller, b. 1898); Irvin Smith, another son-in-law (Louise) is president from 1933-1937
   1935 Freehand decoration ends at Weller
   1935-1948 Weller produces simplified embossed lines
   1937-1948 Walter Hughes, a ceramic engineer and former employee at American Encaustic Tiling Company is Weller's last president
   1947-1948 Essex Wire Corporation buys controlling share in Weller, closes the pottery in 1948
   1954 Minnie Weller dies at age 92, Weller house contents are auctioned

4 comments about Handbags (POCKET COLLECTIBLES).

1. "A survey has found that an American woman owns an average of six handbags." ~Judith Miller
   
   Judith Miller has captured handbags in all their intricate beauty. Many of these bags exist in museums and it is very unlikely that we could observe them all in a lifetime. So, this book is invaluable in that regard. Like Judith Miller's book on perfume bottles, this book exceeds expectations.
   
   The bags range in age from Pre-1890s to the 1970s and present day selections. Each chapter contains historical information, unique quotes and full-color pictures showing the most intricate details and evolution of the beloved handbag. Here we find the original mobile phone, a phone that is shaped as a bag that actually can be plugged in to make calls. One can only imagine those surprise long distance charges after a friend stops by for a visit.
   
   Red velvet Turkish bags with gold embroidery and French beaded purses all live happily amongst pages displaying everything from beadwork to precious metals and leather. There are purses shaped like phones, flowers, accordions, boxes, baskets, wicker parasols, birdhouses, birds and adorable toy rabbits. If you have any interest in Vintage clothes, you may rather enjoy reading about the magazine clutch bag.
   
   With over 400 designs to choose from, this is the ultimate handbag book, it could even fit in a handbag. You will be left with a feeling of: "I simply must have that bag on page ____." However, it is probably in a museum and one can only hope a designer finds this book and makes a modern replica. From the playful to the elegant, there is something to enjoy and many memorable handbags are featured in this wonderful book.
   
   ~The Rebecca Review



2. OK...for some Un-Godly reason Amazon has all four of Judith Miller's Pocket collectible guides from DK books linked together. If you review one of the four, it shows up on all the other three. Very Strange...
   
   Let me make it clear that this review is only for the Metal Toys Book only! Miller is the long-time collectibles and antiques expert and has assembled hundreds of classic tin, cast iron, and die-cast toys for this wonderful book. The book is sectioned by the three distinct types of metal toys I just mentioned beginning with sheet metal or tin toys. Each toy pictured is given a value range based on 1 to 5 stars with 1 star being a range of $10 - $200, and 5 stars being over $2000. Admittedly these are very broad ranges meant to reflect the condition of the item as well as the availability of the items original box and condition as well.
   
   While it's certainly no where near comprehensive, the guide does provide a fair representation of the types, styles, and manufacturers of each of these types of toys and the names are certainly well known to collectors: Dinky, Marx, Cragston, Hubley, Corgi, Tootsie, Schuco, Britains, and Hot Wheels/Mattel. Included are some great early examples of German tin toys such as a fantastic double-decker bus made by Gunthermann that gets a five star value, as well as many great post-WWII toys produced in Japan as factories that formerly made weapons were now being used to make toys. Some other great in toys pictured are the Disney Dipsey car with Donald Duck as the driver made by Marx, and the Nautilus submarine from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" made by Sutcliffe.
   
   The die-cast section features many of the gorgeous Corgi licensed toys like the Beatles Yellow Submarine, Monkeemobile, James Bond cars, and the classic 1960's Batmobile. There are also numerous Hot Wheels "redlines" pictured but while the photography is top-notch, many of the redlines pictured are in very rough condition with lots of scratches and paint nicks. It would have been nice to see some better examples used for the pictures.
   
   One small complaint is that the books is comprised almost entirely of various types of vehicles: cars, airplanes, buses, ships, trucks, wagons, tanks, etc...It was disappointing that things such as the great Japanese tin robots and space toys, and Marx military playsets were not included.
   
   That minor complaint aside, I really enjoyed thumbing through the book and it is a useful tool in recognizing, and evaluation the price of metal toys. Now I just need Amazon to fix their end!
   
   Reviewed by Tim Janson



3. A great book to have on hand as reference. Dimensions of the bottles would have been an advantage.



4. I love this book. I actually saw this in a shop at Logan Airport while waiting for my flight and decided to order it online as soon as I got back home. It's a terrific book if you are looking for inspiration when making your own handbags (I started making felted handbags recently) or if you just happen to like handbags.
   Beautiful detailed photos, elegantly presented. Includes ratings by estimated value for collectors.

2 comments about Georg Jensen: A Tradition of Splendid Silver.

1. Collectors of jewelry of any type now have another acquisition for which to long. It's a signature piece, finely detailed, a valued addition to any serious collection. It is a jewel indeed, but you may not find it at the jewelers. It's a creation of Janet Drucker and it should stand the test of time, for Drucker has crafted Georg Jensen A Tradition of Splendid Silver into a splendid guidebook.

   Not a dry tome, crackling with boredom, this book offers an at once scholarly treatise on Jensen amd a readable reference as well. Drucker sets up the volume by putting Jensen's ascendency into prospective. She grounds him in his time period and explains the forces which created his work and appeal. Not settling for another long line of picture strewn collection catalogs, she introduces the reader to Jensen's life story in a well written and very readable text. Next the collector's delight: the litany of his accomplishment.

   Chapters are devoted to his jewelry, his holloware and his flatware. Then Drucker offers the benediction with a look at Jensen's worldwide legacy. But don't stop there, because the appendix offers the musuem collections of the master and a listing of the artists whose work built the Jensen line.

   Now, lest you think this book is a must for scholars only, rest assured the exquisite photography and the easy to read captioning will make this gem a perfect adornment for your home library. If you know Jensen or not, Georg Jensen A Tradition of Splendid Silver will be splendid for you.




2. The first edition of Janet Drucker's Georg Jensen: A Tradition of Splendid Silver was published just four years ago, in 1997. Now, just a few breaths later, a revised and expanded second edition with an updated price guide is out. Given the impressive richness of the first edition, one might say,"So soon?" The first edition had gone out of print, but it would have been more usual at this remove to reprint it without revisions. The reasons are not especially apparent at first glance; the jacket design(and the jacket advertising copy) has barely changed, the general organization and graphic design of the first edition have been retained in the second, and the number of pages is about the same. When one sits down with both editions and begins to compare them page by page, the differences quickly become apparent. A very large amount of new material has been added into the new book, including 250 new images and expanded archival information on production and designers. Since the publication of the first edition, so much previously unavailable material came to light that its inclusion seemed paramount.
   No matter how long and fully one has worked on a research project in the arts, as soon as one publishes, more material, often keenly interesting material, appears in response to the publication. A study of the second edition's acknowledgements suggests that the beauty and inclusiveness of the first edition brought the suthor new contacts with other dealers, collectors, museum curators, auctioneers, and other specialists, each of whom had something wonderful to add to the story.
   In the case of the new photographs in the second edition, many previously unlocated Jensen pieces turned up. Some pieces illustrated in the first edition only in rather murky old catalogue or magazine photos became available for new color photography. Additional historical photos surfaced as well. The net gain of images in the new book is(by my count) just over two hundred color and black-and-white images overall. That the new addition is physically about the same size as the old one owes to a meticulous reworking of the layout on perhaps half the pages in the book. There was enough "air" (unused white space) in the basic design of the text pages for the first edition to accommodate many more photos in the second edition without choking the graceful layout of the book.
   One of the most important innovations of the second edition is also easily overlooked in a casual inspection, and it will prove very useful to collectors and dealers in understanding Jensen product. The photo captions now include all Jensen design numbers that were stamped on their items of jewelry and hollowware, along with the trademarks and other marks on the back and bottoms of the pieces(only some of these were available to the author for the first edition) All Jensen jewelry and hollowware items were so marked, except for special-order pieces, and much of the earliest flatware was also marked in this way. As in the first edition, there is a full explanation of the marking system near the end of the book. Other important additions to the book are more readily apparent. These include complete reprints of the Jensen illustrated flatware catalogues for the Cactus(flatware pattern 30) and Acorn (flatware pattern 62) patterns, and for the so-called"Unique Serving Pieces". These include seventy-two ornamental serving utensils in a variety of numbered patterns not matching the full-line flatware patterns. The new edition also includes both chronological and production data for all of the sterling silver designs of Henning Koppel that were produced for the Jensen company. The Value Reference Guide has also been updated. This guide is not based on opinion but consists of actual auction records from sales in the major American and British houses over the past decade.
   Given that the first edition had been sold out before public demand for the book had subsided, a reprinting would have been welcome enough. Both the author and the publisher are to be congratulated for instead producing this most significant and valuable revised and expanded second edition. I am glad to recommend it to owners of the first edition along with the ever-expanding group of collectors of Jensen"estate" silver who were not able to obtain the orginal book.

No comments about Country on a Shoestring.

No comments about U.S.A. (Top 10 Wines).

1 comments about German Assault Rifle, 1935-1945.

1. This a top rate book on the worlds first assault rifle's! Full of good B&W photo's,but I wish they included some color photo's.

No comments about Ron Goulart's Great History of Comic Books/the Definitive Illustrated History from the 1890s to the 1980s.

1 comments about Zalkins Handbook of Thimbles and Sewing Implements: A Complete Collector's Guide With Current Prices.

1. This is the best book on thimble history I have seen. It has quite a lot of information on sewing impliments, too. I have used it for a referance on more than one item.

No comments about Diamond Handbook: A Practical Guide to Diamond Evaluation (Newman Gem & Jewelry Series).

2 comments about Immortal Wife.

1. I find reading Irving Stone very informative. I get my romance and my history all rapped up into one book. Immortal Wife has been my favorite nov el since I was a young girl. My husband just recently purchased the book for me, and I reread it. I loved it the second time too!!



2. I really enjoy Irving Stone's novels. He writes factually, and very humanistically. You feel like you are right there with the characters and experiencing everything that they are going through. Immortal Wife has been my favorite book since I was a teenager. Jessie Benton Fremont was a great supporter of her husband. Whether it be his political aspirations, his travels through California, or any trouble that he got into. A great book if you enjoy romance, history and the flavor of the Civil War era. John C. Fremont was a great explorer, and he and his wife were very much against slavery, and started the civil war talk on slavery even before President Lincoln did! This is a must read.