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End of March Book Review by Adrienne Shivers

Title: Costume Jewelry
Author: Judith Miller


General description: Book focuses on everything. Sections on period, big designers, little designers, old designers, news 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: 8

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: 9.5

QUANTITY of INFORMATION
Comments: There are examples of literally everything in this book. Work by every designer you can think of, new and old, examples of different periods and materials. Not a ton of descriptive text, but the basics are there, as a little blrub about each designer. Not in depth, but covered.
Rating: 8

QUALITY of INFORMATION
Comments: Pretty good. A few unsigned pieces I had some questions on, but nothing major. I tend not to read this book, though I made a point to skim it more for this review. Maybe because the pictures seem more compelling than the info?
Rating: 8

VALUES LISTED:
Comments: Values are up there, but there are a few lower surprises. Values culled mostly from regional dealers, so it's not the best cross section, but then what book is?
Rating: 6

USER FRIENDLY
Comments: Fairly easy to follow. Most designers have good/better/best examples, the examples of which which I'm not sure I agree with.
Rating: 8



Total average rating: 7.9

This is a lovely book. Pictures are terrific. Basic info is covered. As I was looking at it again tonight I was thinking that everything's in here, it's all covered. So....I had to ask myself....why don't I ever use this book???? Cause I don't. I've had it since it came out 3 years ago, and aside from the initially run through, I've pulled it out maybe half a dozen times. Can't really say why. Maybe because aside from all the cool pictures, there's just  not much new in the way of info? I truly can't put my finger on why this is not one of my favorites. I do find it a tad overwhelming, there is so much. I do really like that so many names are covered. I'm surprised by the lack of coverage, as compared to her extensive examples of 'big name' pieces, of Eisenberg, for example, only 5 or 6 pieces shown. There's a perspective in this book, and I can't say exactly what it is, but it doesn't make me want to pick it up and look in it a lot. And I have some book that I look at all the time, just for the fun of looking at the jewelry. This just isn't one of those, no one I use often for research. But, I do like it, so go figure.
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