Jewelrymaking through History: An Encyclopedia (Handicrafts through World History)

For money, okay I guess, on the shelf

Very informative and a great price.

For the published price of this book, I expected a bit more. It lacked cohesion and failed to follow any type of chronologic order. It jumped forward and backwards historically and I felt as though I was listening to the ramblings of a demented professor of jewelry history. It covered diamonds in more than one chapter, which is OK, but rather than doing it in successive chapters, the additional chapters were dropped into the book in what appeared to be random order. This randomness is the hallmark of this book.Proof readers could have been a little more diligent. When I find an error in something as simple as the formula for Nickel silver, I begin to wonder what else isn't correct. Page 183 lists "Nickel silver: An alloy composed of 65 percent copper, 28 percent nickel, and 17 percent zinc. . . ." If you add up 65+28+17 it equals 110%. Nothing totals more than 100%. That is simply sloppy proof reading.I also took umbrage to the some of the one liner entries in the "Timeline" of jewelry making that started the meat of the book. What the author found as critical in the Timeline varied from spot on to simply silly.If you can get this book from resellers for around $20, as I did, then it makes for an interesting read. I don't recommend that you use it as a reference in your masters thesis.Also, don't expect to seen any great photographic examples of jewelry. Most pictures and illustrations were outdated and there were only a very few color pictures.