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End of November Book Review by Adrienne Shivers

Title: Collecting Rhinestone & Colored Jewelry
Author: Maryanne Dolan

General description: Covers all sorts of rhinestone jewelry, including a library of marks

This review will cover several categories and will include a rating for that category 1-10, 1 being 'forget it, 10 being 'must have'. There will also be a short comment about each category and then a general review at the end.

QUANTITY of PICTURES:
Comments: Fair number, but not what I'd call a lot, at least not of jewelry. Lot of reproductions of marks in the library, however
Rating: 6

QUALITY of PICTURES:
Comments: Most pictures are black and white, very few in color. No backs, no marks.   
Rating: 4

QUANTITY of INFORMATION
Comments: The best info in the book is the marks. It covers a lot of costume jewelry companies. None of the rest of the info is unique
Rating: 6

QUALITY of INFORMATION
Comments: It's old, this edition (4th) was published in '98. So info is out-of-date
Rating: 4

VALUES LISTED:
Comments: Way, way, way out of date and way, way. high. Pre-internet values across the board
Rating: 1

USER FRIENDLY
Comments: Jewelry organized by type, not my name, marks organized in alphabetical order by mark itself, not the name of the company who used the mark, which is sometimes useful, other tome not.
Rating: 6



Total average rating: 4.5

At one time, about 10 years ago, this book was considered the costume jewelry bible. That was a long time ago. Back then, the pieces in it, many of them, were considered rare and/or rarely seen. It was informative. No so any more. The ONLY reason to have this book in your collection is the library of marks. The pictures are almost all black and white, so you don't really get an impact from looking at the jewelry. The jewelry descriptions are there to tell you want you can't see from pictures. BUT, if you have a mark that you can't identify, you *might* find it in here. The only time I pull out this book is for that reason. This review is probably the first time I've look at this one in at least a year.
You will still find a lot of dealers at shows and what have you, those who are not and have never been online using this book as a value guideline. So, don't be surprised if someone quotes this book. But, even 10 years ago, the values were inaccurate. But, 15 years ago, it was one of the only books available, so it became the bible. We now have much better resources.
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