This well-organized guide is recommended by the Button Society as a book that every button collector and dealer should own. The standard book in the field, it gives information to identify the age, material, and desirability of any button that may be found. It covers buttons of every imaginable type, price range and age. Its convenient size make it a perfect field guide, an easy reference for forays into antique stores, flea markets, and yard sales. The price guide is newly updated to reflect the current market.

This is the most informative book available for the collector of buttons, written by a second-generation collector who has traveled the world over to expand her knowledge of this exciting collectible. The book presents over 10,000 buttons of all imaginable materials from 150 AD to the present in full color and relates their history and development around the world. Buttons have been the fastest growing part of the collecting world for the last few years, and this book tells you about the trends in this vast field of collecting. A number of buttons have gone up ten times in value in the past few years alone! This book is certain to become the "Bible" for the button enthusiast, dealer, or anyone who loves beautiful objects.

Long taken for granted as ordinary household objects, needlework tools are enjoying a new and richly deserved interest among collectors of all ages and both genders. Covering the simple to the sumptuous, this delightful book chronicles the history and diversity of needlework tools dating from ancient Egypt through the twentieth century. Nearly 500 color and black/white photographs beautifully illustrate tools such as needles, bodkins, pin cushions, thimbles, bobbins, clamps, hooks, shuttles, measuring tapes, waxers, winders, and more. In addition to the tools themselves, you will find the boxes and containers used to hold them--from slender needle cases and knitting sheaths to large, ornate sewing boxes. Both new and experienced collectors will enjoy learning about such interesting objects as sewing "toys" and compendiums, Nanny brooches, drizzling cases with their "unpicking" tools, and the nineteenth century sewing cases known as Ladies Companions. A highlight of the book is a special section featuring representative needlework tools from several outstanding international collections. Three appendices, values for the tools illustrated, a bibliography, and an index round out this captivating book.

This book, with over 400 colour and almost 100 black and white illustrations, is the result of years of research. It is the first published history of the tools and accessories used by needlewomen in Holland, from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, describing how they were used and also who would have used them. Many of these tools were beautifully made by craftsmen from precious metals, treasured by their owners and handed down through generations. Others were very simply crafted out of wood, individually carved and decorated by the artisan.

Thimble collectors will be delighted with the abundance of illustrations of thimbles, from those simply made of brass, to gold ones decorated with gemstones. Collectors of other sewing tools will welcome the inclusion of chapters on sewing sets, chatelaines, scissors, needle cases, pin-cushions, tape measures, thread holders and winders, tambour tools and knitting accessories. The final chapter is particularly useful for collectors, as it contains a unique list of the makers of Dutch silver and gold needlework tools, with drawings of their marks to aid identification.

The book will be especially interesting to collectors outside Holland, as many of the beautiful sewing tools made there have found their way to other parts of the world. They were exported to the Dutch colonies in America and South Africa, and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries families took all their household chattels with them, including family heirlooms, when they emigrated to America, Canada or Australasia. Overseas collectors may well discover that some of their treasures were in fact made in Holland.

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The world's foremost authority on the history of thimbles tells all, outlining the little tool's long history, from ancient Egypt to today. The thimbles' history is interwoven with that of women, giving glimpses of a private, domestic world that history books often overlook. Meet the poor little Victorian seamstresses with their everyday brass thimbles and the tiny children's thimbles worn by early straw workers. Glance at gold and gem-set thimbles worn by the courtesans of Paris and, on the other hand, learn why the thimble was the perfect romantic gift a proper gentleman could give to a lady. Romance aside, this book supplies practical tips on cataloging, maintenance, and display, along with price guides and a list of thimble collectors' organizations throughout the world. More than two thousand thimbles are illustrated in full color, some of which have never been seen before.