Customer Reviews

Advertising Paperweights Pictorial Value Guide & History

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A brand new year 2002 delight of a book featuring 192 pages filled with very large, outstanding, beautiful, sharp full color photos to delight any ad paperweight collector. There are few collectibles books whose photography and printing surpass this guide. Collectors will be in awe of this work. There is a nice introduction to the collectible, a list of manufacturers, and a section on "questionable" paperweights. The book covers glass, celluloid, figurals and others. Pricing is current. A beautiful, beautiful book.

The photography in this book is of such poor quality that it is below "crime scene" standards. What a disappointment. I collect advertising paper weights and expected to see examples in colors and detail that would enlighten and entertain. This is a rich topic presented poorly.

I was particularly disturbed to see the terrible, murky poorly lit photographs. The author should have wondered why the photos looked so unrepresentative of the original pieces. It isn't just poor printing (that is so as well) but the lighting of this difficult reflective subject is low grade. Any good pro "tabletop" photographer could have made these items sing. In this case, they have croaked.

Also, it is apparent that the prices of the items are badly out of date, reflecting those of the early 1990's at best. In today's active paperweight market, these prices are just not representative. Any visit to eBay will confirm this.

In short, this "guide" isn't much of anything and certainly doesn't offer the crisp detail of images or information that one would expect for this price.

If I had seen this in a bookstore, I would have laid it back on the pile. I wish I could get my money back.

---Disappointed In December

This subject matter of this book has long been overdue in the collecting world. Until now very little had been published on Victorian advertising paperweights. This is certainly one of the most under appreciated and overlooked niches of collecting advertising memorabilia. The book is jammed with pictures of hundreds upon hundreds of examples. Many of the paperweights pictured are so rare that only one or two copies have been found. I have been collecting since the 1970s. I wish this had been published twenty-five years ago. This book is a visual feast for the novice or the experienced collectors alike.