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

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



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

3 comments about Bleuette Clothing Patterns, 1905-1916.

1. It was a very perfect delivery and I am very satisfy with the book. I know the book before I purchased it. I have seen it by a friend and therefor I want to have it.



2. The book starts with a little history of the doll from French and great vintage pictures are added (through out the book) to show how things were back than and there are instructions how to make the right embroidery stitches that were used. Patterns are actual size and easy to trace. Instructions are easy especially when you're an more experienced sewer but also the novice can have an easy start sewing because there are all kinds of patterns to find in this book. From very easy to complicated (more pattern pieces, pleats to make, put trimming on etc.)you will always find the right pattern to start with.
   The pictures of the fashions to make, are the size of one page - 9"x12" - so all kinds of details are there to see. What can I say but this is a wonderful addition to your doll(pattern) books and I'm sure you'll love it! Good for hours and hours of reading and sewing pleasure.



3. Louise uses the original French patterns and sews them as they were meant to be done. Her work is inspiring.

No comments about Collecting Tin Toys (Popular Toy Collectables).

5 comments about Blast Off! Rockets, Robots, Ray Guns, and Rarities from the Golden Age of Space Toys.

1. I gave this book as a birthday present to my boyfriend, who is a lover of vintage robots. He was thrilled with the book! Lots of great pictures and interesting bits of information. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys in robots or vintage toys, either as a serious collector or just someone with a general interest.



2. As the author of ZAP! Ray Gun Classics, I've looked at a LOT of books on vintage space toys and in my opinion this is the very best one. The diversity of items, production values, factual information and other comments are all superb. I return to this book whenever I need a space toy "nostalgia fix" and I always seem to find something new. No vintage space toy collection should be without it.



3. More than merely a definitive catalogue of the subject, Blast Off is a socio-historical journey. Toys offer provide the prism through which the authors examine fascinating sociological phenomenon. Make no mistake this is the definitive book for this topic, but it becomes a tour de force by examining the history, economics, and sociology implied by these fascinating products from our recent past.



4. More than merely a definitive catalogue of the subject, Blast Off is a socio-historical journey. Toys offer provide the prism through which the authors examine fascinating sociological phenomenon. Make no mistake this is the definitive book for this topic, but it becomes a tour de force by examining the history, economics, and sociology implied by these fascinating products from our recent past.



5. Blast Off! is a fun and fascinating read for any fan of science fiction, space toys, or comic books. It's a beautiful coffee table-sized book with sexy images of robots, ray guns, and toys of all types that make you feel nostalgic even if you don't remember these toys from the first time around.

   This book offers a history of "in the know" type stories about specific toys and the personalities who created and purchased them. There's the Buck Rogers XZ-31 rocket pistol that led Macy's and Gimbels into their most vicious price war ever, dropping prices by the hour to support the most successful toy promotion the world had ever seen. And there's the collector Bob Lesser who pays double the sticker price to win dealer loyalty. And there's a never-been-published story of the untimely death of Flash Gordon creator Alex Raymond. Plus the authors offer insight into how toys have affected history, entertainment, and the space program.

   If you're a fan of Buck Rogers like I am, you should also check out Blast Off! author S. Mark Young's interviews with Erin Grey in Filmfax (Oct/Nov 2002 and Feb/Mar 2003) for a sensitive rendering of a sensational story.

No comments about Buying and Selling Teddy Bears Price Guide.

1 comments about Star Trek Collectibles : Classic Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager (A Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. If you love Star Trek and collect Star Trek Items, this is a must for your collection.

3 comments about The Jigsaw Puzzle: Piecing Together a History.

1. If you like jigsaw puzzles as I do, you must read this book. If you really love wooden jigsaw puzzles, buy the book today.



2. Just when I least expected it, a new book on Jigsaw Puzzles appears.I already had a good book on the subject,"The One,The Only,The Original Jigsaw Puzzle Book" by Francene and Louis Sabin,1977.It was and still is a very good book.While obviously,some of the same things are covered,there is still enough that ie different to make it worthwhile as a companion to this new jigsaw book.(see my review ).In just about every aspect, this book gives a lot more.There are 16 color pages showing about 50 collectible jigsaws;no way could black and white do them justice.History of jigsaws is covered from their inception in the mid-1700's and particulaly during the puzzle crazes of the 1920's.Also covered is how inovations took place over the years .There are details on construction and manufacture as well as complete instructions on various ways to make your own puzzles.We are also told of some of the famous people who indulge in puzzles;Bill Gates,Albert Einstein,Bing Crosby,Jean Harlow,George W. Bush,Stephen King,several US Presidents and even J.P.Morgan.Hard to believe all these people have something in common.We are also told of speed competitions to assemble puzzles as well as record size and complexity of puzzles.
   I also found out about a puzzle I've had for some time and never got around to working on. Namely, one put out by Christopher Mockton,in 1998 called Eternity.He was the son of a Vicount and advisor to Prime Minister Thatcher.The puzzle consisted of 209 geometrically shaped pieces which had to be placed in a frame.Somewhat like a 209 piece Tangram.The buyer had 4 years to complete it for a Million Pound prize.To great astonishment, 2 Cambridge students spent 6 months on a computer program and successfully solved it.Mockton had to sell his ancestral home in Scotland to pay off the prize.It is a great collector's item,and I found in a 'Thrift Store'for a dollar,but somehow I doubt I'll ever solve it.
   It kind of reminds me of Loyd's "Cyclopedia of Puzzles"This huge volume was hastily assembled by his son and privately published in 1914 and offered a large prize to the first person who submitted correct solutions to all the puzzles.Well,there were all kinds of errors,multiple solutions,impossible solutions and whatnot ,so that nobody won the prize.Dover Publishing and Martin Gardner put out a selection of these puzzles in 1959.
   Sorry for the digression.The Jigsaw book gives us some names for various shaped pieces,such as, ,turtles,loops,sockets,knobs,holes,tabs,slots,keys, locks and suggests you find some of your own names.I like tongues,mouths,lefties,righties,uppers,downers,straights,curves, to name a few more.
   Then to top it off, Williams gives hundreds of references,all the way from web sites,books,manufacturers,sellers,organizations and many,many references to articles in all sorts of publications.
   It's hard to imagine this being anything but the definitive book on Jigsaw Puzzles for a long time.Then again;maybe another new dog will appear on the block;but it'll have to be good to top this one.



3. "On the face of it, a jigsaw puzzle is a ridiculous exercise in make-work and wasted time." This is the analysis of Anne D. Williams, and she ought to know. After all, she is in the opinion of puzzle-master Will Shortz "the world's foremost expert on jigsaw puzzles." She has built an academic career on jigsaws, and has one of the world's largest collections (around 8,000), and so can be counted to look at them as something more than ridiculous exercises. In _The Jigsaw Puzzle: Piecing Together a History_ (Berkley Books), she has assembled (ahem - the puns about puzzles, frequent in this work, are surprisingly numerous) an appealing collection of what must have been a pastime in almost everyone's life. The appeal of the subject is therefore universal, and its aspects are here told with humor and genuine delight. Though all of us have worked on jigsaws, much of the book has to do with those who work on manufacturing the puzzles and those obsessed with putting the puzzles together, or collecting them.
   
   American children almost all have put together maps of the United States, with each state being a separate piece (well, the little ones in the northeast often blended). In doing so, they participate in the earliest form of the jigsaw. The "dissected map" was the original jigsaw, and mapmakers were the original jigsaw manufacturers. The precise date of origin or identity of the inventor are not known, but there were jigsaw maps by 1760, and the children of King George III played with them, and maybe learned some geography. They were expensive, and so are the handmade wooden ones that are still made, maybe at $6 a piece. Such puzzles often have pieces that look like letters our silhouettes of bird, clowns, or infinite others; this was an innovation of Parker Brothers in 1908, the time of the first puzzle fad. A further fad occurred around the depression, when puzzles were taken up again by a new generation who could no longer afford the theater, who had time on their hands, and who might get some small mental lift by being able to succeed in completing a puzzle. Luxury puzzles best exemplified currently by Stave Puzzles, now patronized by the likes of Queen Elizabeth, Barbara Bush, and Bill Gates. The owner, Steve Richardson, is known as the "Chief Tormentor," and takes seriously his role in making harder puzzles, like the one of only 150 pieces that could fit together a million wrong ways and one right way. He admits he went too far in an April Fool's Day puzzle for 1989 called "5 Easy Pieces". It had only five pieces, and it was easy to put four together; the last one always proved too big to fit in. Thirty buyers took the puzzle on, at $89, and he sent refunds to them all: the puzzle wasn't too hard, it was impossible.
   
   There are computer programs now that take a photo and change it into pieces that can be shown on your monitor. You use the mouse to move and turn the pieces into the solution. Williams obviously values the older puzzles more, but admits that with a computer puzzle, one never risks losing a piece. There are computer programs used to solve puzzles, as the designer of the fiendish "Eternity" puzzle learned after he offered a prize of a million pounds to anyone who solved it within four years. Six months of full-time computing by two Cambridge mathematicians lost him his money and the ancestral mansion he had to sell. It is only one of the amazing stories here, in a well illustrated and funny book about a happy aspect of human ingenuity.

No comments about Marx Toys: Robots, Space, Comic, Disney & TV Characters : With Values (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1 comments about On Miniature Wings: Model Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum.

1. I did not know anything about the world of model aircrafts until I picked up this book. This book does a wonderful job of interweaving the history of the Air and Space collection with the role model aircrafts played in the war effort. I would be remised if I did not strongly encourage the reader to really take the time to look at each picture in the book. Some of the pictures give you up close detail information on the the intricate work involved in the models (i.e. maps in the cockpits). This book gives you a new appreciation to a hobby that is finally getting the respect it deserves.

2 comments about Warman's Disney Collectibles Field Guide: Values And Identification (Warmans Disney Collectibles Field Guide).

1. The first thing to know about the various Warman's Field Guides is that by design they are not meant to be all encompassing. If you're looking to a comprehensive guide to every Disney collectible then you will have to look elsewhere (if there is such a beast). The Warman's Field Guides are designed to be pocket-sized guides, easily able to take-along on those trips to flea markets, antique shows, or garage sales. They are meant to give an example of various types of Disney collectibles, more for the casual or new collector, than one who's a veteran. Thus you won't find every item in the book but you'll probably find pretty close approximations, enough to at least make an educated guess about an item's value. It's either that or haul around a Webster's Dictionary-sized guide.
   
   The book is alphabetized by character name/film beginning with the "Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad", and then goes on from there. There are marvelous treasures in the book that will make Disney collectors salivate and it's complemented by fantastic, full-color photography, highlighting one item per page for the most part.
   
   Among the treasures are a complete Alice in Wonderland lobby card set of 8 valued at $1400, a Davy Crockett one-sheet movie poster from 1955 for $650, A 1950's Donald Duck tin lithograph bank from Marx toys for $265, a 1930's Clarabelle drinking glass for $40, a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs bisque figure set for $215, and a Mickey Mouse pocket watch from the 1930's, valued at $465.
   
   There are a myriad of toys, figurines, books, posters, and lobby cards to be found within the pages of the guide. If I have one minor complaint it would be that there are too many examples shown in the book of the Mickey Mouse Magazine, Dell Four Color Comics and Walt Disney Comics and Stories. There's probably a hundred pages, one-fifth of the book dedicated to these items which to me is a bit too much since there are already many excellent comic book price guides (Krause themselves puts out many great comic price guides) on the market which do a better job on these types of items. I would have rather seen much more coverage of non-comic book items.
   
   All in all though, the book definitely does what it intended to do.
   
   Reviewed by Tim Janson



2. Was not overly impressed with the coverage of collectibles in this guide. Can't be too specific except to say I perused the book when I received it a month ago and have not even opened it a 2nd time. Pretty much a wasted purchase. Sorry to be so critical.