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End June Book Review by Sam Mitchell



Title: Plastic Jewelry of the Twentieth Century Identification & Valve Guide.
Author: Lillian Baker Updated by Karima Perry and Ginger Moro.
Type of Book: Hard Bound
Average Price: $24.95
In or Out of Print: In Print
Number of Pages: 240 pages


Brief Description of Book:
        Most everything you always wanted to know about plastic jewelry
                                                

NOTE:   Reviews Based on the following Scoring Measure:
1 Being “Forget It” and 10 Being “Must Have”

QUANTITY OF PICTURES:
    Comments: Lots of pictures including plastic’s advertizing
    SCORE: 8

QUALITY OF PICTURES:
    Black and White Pictures? Yes
    Color? Yes
    How good are the pictures? Pictures are pretty good overall
    Are there close ups of the marks? There are no pictures of marks
    Comments: There are some real good pictures of plastic jewelry you may have not seen before. Lots of color pictures until you get to page 180 and they are all black and white after that.
    SCORE: 8

QUANTITY OF INFORMATION:
    Range of information offered?
    Is information thorough?
    Comments: There’s lots of info on the different time lines of the plastic manufactures then the book gets bogged down on Kenneth J Lane and Joseff of Hollywood.
    SCORE: 7

QUALITY OF INFORMATION:
    Accuracy (are there mistakes?): The dating of the Bakelite cherry earrings on page 29 looks wrong and the Bakelite set on page 103 looks all wrong to me.
    Comments: Information is really good except for above
    SCORE: 4

VALUES LISTED:
    Are they helpful or realistic?
    Comments: Some of the prices are really good except for the Bakelite. Bakelite jewelry prices are on the decline and other plastic’s are rising. Over all I think Karima and Ginger did well by updating the prices in the book
    SCORE: 7

USER FRIENDLY:
    Is the book easy to read and follow?
    Are things easy to find (table of contents/index)?
    Comments: Everything is easy to find and follow
    SCORE: 8
     

TOTAL AVERAGE SCORE 7



Is this a must have book?  No


Overall Comments: Even though I gave the book some high marks, I don’t think it’s a must have book. Its just one of those books that sits on the edge between a good book and a bad book.
Pro’s & Con’s
Pro.
The front of the book with the time lines and the back of the book with the Appendix of the A B C’s of plastic is a really good and necessary part to the book.
Con’s
If the book included more variety of jewelry and included picturers of the backs to show the construction of the plastic pieces then the book would have been really good. The glossary in the back is nothing more than filler to give the book more pages and is out of place in a book about plastic jewelry.

With all the writing about Kenneth Jay Lane and Joseff of Hollywood you would think they were the only ones making plastic jewelry.
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