Customer Reviews

Silver Christmas Ornaments: A Collector's Guide

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Original 1980 book is much more comprehensive in guidelines for a collector to include current priceguides. Her newest 1997 update has more enhanced ornament selection and discussion but poorly presented when it comes to valuating current market prices for these ornaments....what she does do is spend lots of time and print on the "issue price" for the older ornaments which I do not believe has merit from a collectors point of view......disappointing after waiting some 20+ years for an update....and still have to research further for information that was in her first edition of the book and missing in the much later and current 1997 update....if one is new to collecting silver ornaments it is easy to be impressed with all the newest silver and silverplate ornaments of the last 30 years to include photos for easy identification.

"Silver Christmas Ornaments" was written by collector extraordinaire Clara Scroggins, whose collection includes more than 250,000 sterling and silverplate ornaments. This is a 1997 update of a book Scroggins first published in 1980. Most of the ornaments included are sterling; some are silverplate. This limits the book's utility in that sterling collectors don't care about silverplate, and silverplate collectors won't find much here. Add to that the fact that many ornaments in the book are not clearly labeled as to whether they are sterling or plated, and the disadvantage in trying to include both in one book is clear. Usually, plate or sterling is indicated in the description, but sometimes it is simply left out, leaving the reader to wonder.

Ornaments are organized alphabetically by manufacturer. There are over 400 black-and-white photos, plus an 8-page color insert, but most ornaments are not pictured. Many are listed and described, with ornaments issued before 1980 tending to be listed without description. Size is usually not indicated, and, as I mentioned above, it can be difficult or impossible to determine if some ornaments are sterling or plated. Scroggins provides a full list of Hand & Hammer issues through 1997, which can be difficult to find, and there is an abridged price guide in the back. She specializes in Hallmark Keepsake ornaments, so those are included (most are silverplate). There are careless errors here and there, such as the repeated misspelling of the ornament retailer "Sterling Collectibles" [sic].

This book might give a new collector some idea of what is out there, but the limited pictures and confusion between sterling and plate make it a poor resource for serious collectors. It covers 1000+ ornaments compared to 3000+ in Peggy Hart's looseleaf "Sterling Ornaments Collector's Guide", the most complete guide to sterling ornaments available, which also pictures every ornament. Hart's book is out of print and difficult to find as of this writing, and it has not been updated since 2005. Nevertheless, that's the book to get if you're as sterling ornament collector or aspire to be one. I don't know what the best resources are for silverplate collectors, as there are hundreds of thousands of silverplate ornaments out there.

Clara Scroggins has cornered the market in silver Christmas ornaments! This unusual reference complements her other book. Sad to witness how prices have dropped for the serious collector!

AS A NOVICE COLLECTOR, I FOUND THIS BOOK TO BE MOST NFORMATIVE BUT NOT OVERWHELMING IN IT'S DESCRIPTIONS AND DETAILS OF SILVER CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS COLLECTING.

AS A NEW COLLECTOR OF STERLING CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS, I FOUND THIS BOOK TO BE MOST INFORMATIVE AND DETAIL ORIENTED. THE PICTURES OF THE ORNAMENTS ALONG WITH EACH DESCRIPTION WAS MOST HELPFUL TO THE COLLECTOR. LOOKING FORWARD TO OBTAINING PAST GUIDES BY CLARA JOHNSON SCROGGINS.