Review your vintage jewelry books: Love, useful, hate etc...

An after-thought from the on-line resources thread. I know I have half a gazillion ref books; 2/3s are on jewelry. Some I go back to time after time. Some are so poorly organized they're hardly worth owning. Some date pieces, some show the backs. Each has pros and cons. And I bet we have differing opinions on them too!

Let's get a resource started here with books. Rather than just a list, though, I think it would be even more helpful if we talk about what we found (or didn't find) helpful etc.

For example: I just got an old copy of Lillian Baker's "50 years of costume jewelry: 1925-1975". If you buy it thinking it's a even-handed decade by decade review, you're in for a bad shock.

But if you buy it knowing that
1). Almost everything is from 1950-1970,
2.) 1/4 of the photos are B&W
3.) Much of the jewelry is the less expensive kind like coro, emmons & SC
and 4.) of course it's at least a couple decades old,
you will own a lovely review of 25 years of the most common styles of the most common brands of costume jewelry you will likely find plus a comparison of the less expensive things to similar more expensive maker's pieces.

I read all the reviews on Amazon & decided the $4 plus $4 shipping was worth it. Wouldn't pay much more for it though unless I was a collector of those specific brands.

Maybe you want to list a few books & just talk about 1. That works too. Let's dig in!! Can't be much better to do over the holidays than curl up with a good book on vintage jewelry!!

Leslye

Tags: Books for vintage jewelry collectors, books on Vintage jewelry, collecting vintage jewelry, jewelry collectors books, reviews, reviews vintage jewelry books, vintage jewelry, vintage jewelry books, vintage jewelry collecting books

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dragonmum on December 20, 2009 at 8:58pm

Lynn,

my idea for this thread is for book reviews. Especially what you've found very useful, love for the photos, hate because it is worthless - and what you think anyone considering buying a specific book should know. I think I have a small fortune's worth of books on collectibles too. Even on things I don't usually deal with, like bottles & metalware. My first choice is to buy them well-used and cheap, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet - like that 2 Volume set from the Italian guy. (OK, so I forget names XP)

I think every thread relating to a specific topic should do this. For example, I have a huge amount of trouble finding books on hat & hand bags and, when I do, trying to figure out if they are really worth buying. The Amazon reviews always seem to be written by the same few people - but I want real people to tell me what they are actually using!!

So I think it's a great idea!! Maybe we should each start a thread like this in various groups we belong to - if we overlap, whoever gets there first can do it!

Leslye

Permalink Reply by COBAYLEY on January 3, 2010 at 11:31pm

I'm going to jump in and give the reasons for my favorite reference guides first. They have to have information, not just a bunch of pretty pictures. I've paid up to 100.00 for a book only to be greatly disappointed because they were nothing more than a "coffee table book" full of pictures.

My (at this moment) No 1 favorite jewelry book is
Collectible Silver Jewelry Identification and Value Guide by Fred Rezazadeh, 2001 Collector Books

What a wonderful reference. Companies, designers, countries, ....it's all here. In the back of the book there is extensive reference to anything to do with collectible jewelry you could ever want to know. I just did a quick search on Amazon and from what I can determine the book is out of print. Amazon lists it for $75.00 and upwards. Keep an eye out at your local thrift or second hand book seller. I would not give this book up for anything. And, let me tell you, in the last 30 years, a LOT of reference books have fallen in and out of my bookshelf. You can LEARN something from this book.

Permalink Reply by Out Of The Attic 2u on March 8, 2011 at 7:35pm

I have so many books on jewelry and other collectibles, some are great others are okay. The few books I have on jewelry are great for me since I am new at collecting vintage jewels um the less expensive kind right now.

The book I am using right now on jewelry is "Answers to Questions About Old Jewelry 1840-1950 7th Edition by C. Jeanenne Bell" Its colorful with many pictures which I like but also informitive to a certain degree. I got this from KrausePublications.

RSS

Welcome to
The Vintage Village

Sign Up
or Sign In

Or sign in with: