Customer Reviews

American Police Collectibles : Dark Lanterns and Other Curious Devices

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It's more than a collector's guide. It's more than a reference work. It's a comprehensive, thorough, meticulously researched historical chronicle of the evolution of law enforcement in America, as enabled by and resulting from the technological advances made in the equipment available to police officers.

Utilising the archives of the United States Patent Office, the custodian of inventive progress, author Matthew G. Forte has compiled and assembled an orderly, systematic record, divided into logical categories, of the development of the devices upon which police relied on a daily basis. The categories include billy clubs and night-sticks, handcuffs, mechanical nippers, chain nippers, rattles and lanterns. Beginning with illuminating and informative comments, explanations and observations, each chapter reproduces an abundance of, including the more and most important, actual patent design drawings, as well as reprints from period catalogues.

This fully indexed book also contains a fine section of representative photographs of many items from each category. Printed on thick gloss stock, the quality of the illustrations is superb, as is the literary quality of the written text.

"American Police Collectibles" is as immensely interesting as it is an essential resource tool. It stands as the definitive work of its kind, by one of the leading experts, if not the leading expert, in this fascinating field.

I recently acquired this book and have found it to be the most detailed, complete, accurate and interesting guide on the topic of American policing equipment. It is full of historical information, and helps you identify the details that make one police relic valuable where as a similar one may be common-place. I cannot express enough the value of this tome to a collector in this genre, or even just to someone interested in early american history.

My highest recomendations asside, I don't know that I could condone spending the more than one thousand dollars that the booksellers on Amazon are currently asking for this precious volume. I was able to purchase it at a price much closer to it's $24.95 cover price, and I belive it is an absolute steal.

Happy hunting!