Customer Reviews

Pictorial Guide to Silvered Mercury Glass

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Diane C. Lytwyn's "Pictorial Guide Silvered Mercury Glass - Identification and Values" is not a book for the casual reader but the serious glass collector who is not repelled by the gaudy (to some) appearance of silvered glass. Lytwyn's carefully researched 160 pages of my paperback copy more than fulfilled expectations of a guide to this seldom talked about area of glass collecting, as evidenced by the dated, but time-tested sources cited in her bibliography. The scope of the glass covered is broad, from the antique to the recently produced, from simple functional pieces to whimsical little animals, tells the reader that no dark corner has been left unexplored. Lytwyn's illustrations, though some possess black holes of ring-flash photography, are indeed crisp and including many macro-photographic shots which capture the fine detains necessary for identification. Her assessments of values, however, are somewhere in the stratosphere and obviously represent only pristine examples. Silvered Mercury Glass is a welcome addition to my glass library as it should be to any collector who loves richly adorned, especially engraved, glass. fna

I haven't seen a great deal on this subject, so interested readers may want this. At least they can get some idea of the variety and beauty of these pieces. Many of the pictures are extremely blurry, as though either the camera or the object was shaking. Perhaps it has to do with the difficulties of photographing highly reflective surfaces, but some of the pictures are very good, so that's a doubtful hypothesis.