Topic: Vintage Books - Why Buy Them?

[Paul S.]

thanks Angela and David.             After we spoke of this in September last year, I phoned the Antiques Collectors' Club people for whom Vol. one was printed - in China - who told me they had no record of No. two having been published, so I took them at their word and forgot the matter.
Judging by the ISBN Nos., it does appear that the volume on Alibris and Amazon is the long awaited second volume  -  I notice that Jane Spillman (now retired from the Corning I believe) is sharing authorship with Kenneth M. Wilson on this one.

Not sure about the reasons for high prices  -  like many of these things it's very limited market - certainly in the U.K. anyway.            Volume one had a new price of $95., and mine came from a second hand shop in the Charing X Rd., that seems to remainder various obscure tomes, and for which I paid £39., which seems a lot for a book that I'll use only rarely I suppose.

Pity I missed No. 2 in 2011 - it probably had a new price of somewhere around $100 - $130, but no way I can justify paying these recent secondhand silly prices.

But you never know, and if you can find me a second hand copy in Hay Angela  -  do let me know, with price, and I'll contact the seller and try to buy  -  but don't somehow think you're going to find a pre-owned copy at an affordable price - not yet at least.
I'll speak again to the ACC, and see if they have any intentions of publishing under their own imprint.

As you can imagine, these books are truly sumptuous offerings, and even if you don't get to need States id's very often they are books they have immense interest for all glassaholics.

[essi]

Hello Paul s. stopped of at an antiques centre today on the way home from work, to my surprise saw about a dozen or so studio magazines. They seemed to date from about the first world war period. I flicked through every page hoping to find some articles on British glass but no luck.
There was a small article about leach pottery, some good pictures of furniture from that period and modernist Russian stage sets.
I think they were priced at £5 for two.
Let me know if you need any details.
Tim   

[Paul S.]

thanks for thinking of me Tim.           You say magazines, which presumably are only parts of a full volume, and I do know that the 'Studio' was published in parts (whether monthly or what I'm unsure).

I tend to collect the Studio only when bound into full volumes (think they started some time around 1890), and have been trying to buy only those issued during the art nouveau period (c. 1890 to about 1915 ish), then breaking and picking up again around 1925 to about 1940 for the deco years  -  think they went on to some time about the 1960's.
Appreciate the offer, but I now have most of these years, and have also found the Studio year books of decorative art equally useful - they're a little thinner, and concentrate more on contemporary design for ceramics, glass, fabrics, etc., rather than architecture, and art.
Condition is sometimes poor, but provide content is clean then no problem.
None of these has over much on glass, but Whitefriars, Scandi, Chance, T/Webb and Webb Corbett are covered with fairly good pix, to some extent in all of the volumes.
Not often as cheap as I'd like, but they give a good view of changes in trends for decorative and domestic styles.
If you do see them at reasonable prices, I'd suggest buying - they will only become more scarce as the years go by.

[Simba]

Well had a fabulous day in Hay....sadly no luck with the book Paul there was a rather nice book called 'The Kosta Boda Book of Glass'...but I resisted buying it, as I had found too much glass to buy so feeling very pleased with my trip. Great selection of cloud glass in the Antique Centre.

[David E]

Wouldn't have minded that Kosta Boda book, Angela, but that was six months ago! 

A couple more vintage books for the ever-burgeoning shelves:

An Illustrated Dictionary of Glass, Harold Newman, 1977 - 351pp and a great resource for ID'ing and about the processes used.

Dansk Glas 1825–1925, Larsen, Riismøller, Schlüter, 1963 (but there is a later revised version in 1974) - 412pp and a must for any Danish glass collector.

[Paul S.]

or should that be 'a collector of Danish glass'            Do we have any Danes here??   currently, I'm not so sure.

I think Ivo was waxing lyrical about this book, but said that translation not easy.         I think it came up as being useful when talking about examples of drinking glasses/tumblers in Europe -  apropos of the fact that quality English text books, showing evolution and shapes for C19 material, are thin on the ground.              I'd probably buy if it wasn't too expensive, but since you now have it David, we can all come to you for advice
Perhaps we should send Angela a list of what to buy when next she visits

Would agree that Newman is worth having.

If anyone wants to buy me vol. 2 of  'Mt. Washington & Pairpoint Glass' for my birthday -  it's in February

[David E]

"Danish glass collector" is fine. I think the meaning is clear enough and I don't worry that much about grammar until Christine corrects it.

Have you tried looking through this little lot.

http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,59085.0.html

[Paul S.]

if you think that the Danish book would be useful to me  -  re drinking glasses/tumblers etc. - do let me know some time David

thanks for the reminder of the book list  -  and p.s. I wasn't being too serious  -  just my liking for a little contentious humour

[Simba]

David I went back to Hay today but the Kosta Boda book had gone 😕 not many glass books on sale, really had to hunt around ....but at least I found some nice pieces of glass