Customer Reviews

Smithsonian Handbooks: Shells

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This handbook on shells is very reliable in the field or in a studio. Dozens of mollusks, crustaceans, and other exotic shell collectibles are listed here, turning out at more than two hundred species listings! However, most featured here are east coast species or found way out of the United States, which makes it not as reliable for an American beachcoming in Santa Barbara or Baja California. For those living out on the east coast or in the Caribbean, this is an excellent and very reliable resource. Also quite fun to read as a coffee table or easy chair book.
There is a catch however, as the book is bound in low quality paperback. May show wear more quickly than Audubon leatherback guides or Peterson solid lamination and paper. Best for a landlocked ocean lover wanting to take an extraordinary look at the seas marvels and shell collectibles at a nearby store.

All collectors become well aware of the two most famous shell book authors as they enter a journey into this hobby; R Tucker Abbott and Peter Dance. Dance has written this book as a general shell book of world wide shells, more to promote interest than being a particularly useful field identification guide. There are at last count, somewhere around 80,000 members of the mollusks; clearly any shell book has to take that into account and only the more popular species are going to be present.

What Dance has is some representaive members of the more popular species the casual collector is likely to find or purchase. While I like the clean photographs I find the ranges that are listed for the different species are a bit too general. But again, this is a book to get one started in the hobby.

While getting very long in the tooth, don't overlook Abbotts Golden Guide of seahells for the beginner. It is a surpringly good intro book as long as you don't take the relative abundance of species listed too seriously (In other words don't put a morgage down on a Glory-of-the-Seas you'll likely be making a poor investment!).

A much better general shell book once you've found you really can't id all your worldwide shells is the Abbott/Dance Compendium of Seashells. It helps ID well over 4,000 species. Otherwise use regional guides of which there are numerous examples such as Seashells of North America: A Guide to Field Identification (Abbott).

This is a wonderful book and very informative. It has a photo on each page of each shell along with each description of the name, what countries they come from, where in the water or in sand you find them or how deep in the sea they come from, the size they grow and how commonly found are they. I think this book is for anyone really. Weather you're beginning a collection, or collecting for a while. Serious about collecting(like me) or just like to look at interresting and beautiful shells.

Rehana(Chicago, IL)

Shells is an excellent reference book for the beginner or seasoned shell collecter. The color photos are excellent and the general maps are helpful.

Although this book has many beautiful pictures and drawings, it is extremely limited in the numbers of shells it discusses or portrays. I was looking for an authoritative guide and key, but it is instead a miniature coffee-table book. Arrived on time and in pristine condition.

The marvels of Seashells, can be found in this book.

We have been collecting seashells for years.

How many? I am not gonna tell.

On a whim, I picked out this book to find out what types of shells we had rounded up over the years. My hubby and I had a blast.

The sizes and details, and the most colorful pictures ever

in this book, had us hooked.

We took our shells out and started sorting them out. I never knew there were so many types of shells, from all over the world.

This book goes into great detail to tell you the regions, the habitats,species and etc, of over 500 species from around the world.

I can't even to begin to give out the names of these beautiful shells. Some of our collection contained Tritons, Helmet, conch shells, whelks, and many, many more.

We enjoyed this task, and with the help of this book,

we had a ball.

I do recommend taking a glance at this colorful book

on shells and the like.

Happy hunting.

Ordered for my grandson because of DK format of information. It is a perfect combination of information and pictures.

We have some other shell books, but this is the most consulted always! Two members of the family collect shells, and this book is a guide very needed, easy to consult and with piles of great pictures and descriptions. If you go looking for just one shell, you will end up checking all other shells in surrounding pages, because the pictures are fantastic!

As a small scale shell collector- hobbyist, I'm delighted with the huge selection of beautiful shells presented in this book.

I was easily able to identify almost every shell I've got from the illustrations. It's concise, small size, well written and has a clear presentation.

I just love this book. It lists so many beautiful seashells with very beautifully detailed photographs. The seashells are shown close up as if they have been cut out from photographs and pasted onto the page. You can imagine if you placed a real seashell right onto the page. That's how it looks. For each shell, it describes it's appearance, growth size, location, habitat, and of course-its name! A truly wonderful book for any collector (serious or beginner) to take along to the beach. It's a very informative and helpful field guide. A very good size to take anywhere. Might fit in a large pocket or easily in a purse, or your beach bag. I used to rent this book from my local library because I loved it so much. Now I purchased it through amazon used, in a "NEW" condition for a great price. It is worth it if you love shells as much as me!

-Rehana(Chicago, IL)