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End of August Book Review by
   Adrienne Shivers


Title: Fabulous Fakes
Author: Carole Tanenbaum

General description: Book focuses on high-end everything. Small sections on periods, big designers, little designers, old designers, new designers, plastics, bakelite, and unsigned.

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: A lot of pictures, all color, no backs, no marks.
Rating: 7

QUALITY of PICTURES:
Comments: Great shots, color is superb. Some could be bigger, bur there's so many, some need to be small to make them all fit.
Rating: 9

QUANTITY of INFORMATION
Comments: There are examples of literally everything in this book, as long as it's fabulous. Some bits and pieces of info on designs, periods, history, but nothing really new, just re-compiled.
Rating: 5

QUALITY of INFORMATION
Comments: Pretty good. I question a couple of attributions but that's really subjective. She does describe material of pieces, which is good.
Rating: 8

VALUES LISTED:
Comments: No values!
Rating: 0

USER FRIENDLY
Comments: You just have to thumb through this one. Pieces are in chronological order, but you'll need to use the index to look up specifics, if you are not in the mood to browse....see summary
Rating: 6



Total average rating: 6.3333

If you want something to browse through just for drooling, get this one! This is a browsing book if there ever was one. If you're looking for every day jewelry research, skip it. There's not a single 'every day' piece of jewelry in here. Carole is well known for her collection and it's vast and spectacular. If you aspire to find the high end stuff, get this book, you'll get a really great idea of what high end collecting is all about. She has a varied collection, covers lots of everything, so it's a lot of fun to look at. But, if you're looking to learn, other than seeing pieces you may never see elsewhere, there's not much new on the research front. And, if you use books to determine values, forget it, there are none in here.  I'm glad I have it, I use it to relax with and lust over, but almost never refer to it when trying to find info on a piece.
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