Identifying Fountain Pens: The New Compact Study Guide and Identifier (Identifying Guide Series) (Hardcover)

~ Jonathan Steinberg (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: BookSales Inc (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785807748
• ISBN-13: 978-0785807742
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #961,808 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Nifty Books in One, November 1, 2009

By	Walter Herip (Peninsula, Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Upon opening the package when it arrived and seeing the little book, my initial reaction to was disappointment. I scanned a few pages and simply put aside, until yesterday. Don't judge a book by its size or until you get beyond its poor organization by the book's designer. There are two very wonderful books in this dynamite little package -- once you understand it.

As in his other books, Steinberg's text on the history of the pen is excellent and insightful. Once you discover that it is threaded throughout the excellent illustrations with captions -- from which the text is barely distinguishable -- there is a powerful pocket sized history of the fountain pen that allows the reader to grasp more than a century of sound history on the fountain pen. A history quickly available to the reader in a single sitting. You will also find yourself wincing more than at Steinberg's periodic rye criticisms that keep the subject very alive. That's book number one and I'll read it a second time.

The wonderful illustrations with captions form a second book that isn't as dynamic as the text. Too often the captions waver between perfect and way too brief -- "A streamlined red lever-filler" seams a woefully lacking in substance as a notation in an identification guide and is too typical for a number of these very lovely photo illustrations. But despite the occasional short cutting on the captions, the random placement of these many of photos often provide another needless jar to the reader, making one wonder why the connections to historic sequence so easily achieved were overlooked by the book's designer.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. Even with these admittedly possibly petty problems. Should you want to get a quick grasp on the history and evolution of the fountain pen, this book will provide it. "Identifying Fountain Pens: The New Compact Study Guide and Identifier" offers enough to more than justify reading it and adding it to your collection at a modest price. It will certainly stay in my library to be referenced many times in the future for its solid, but brief, content.