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Rating: 
Summary: ONLY GOOD AS A STARTER
Review: I PURCHASED MY FIRST COPY OF THIS BOOK TEN YEARS AGO. IT HAD POOR DRAWINGS, MANY POOR PHOTO COPIES OF MANUFACTURERS LITERATURE, I WROTE TO THE PUBLISHER LISTING MANY ERRORS, AND SUBMITED MY FINDINGS HOPING TO BE HELPFUL TO THE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER. I PURCHASED WHAT YOU ARE SELLING NOW AS AN UPDATE TO MY ORIGINAL BOOK. TO MY SUPRISE THE SAME ERRORS AND POOR DRAWINGS WERE JUST BEING REPRINTED. THERE WAS NO REAL UPDATE TO THE IDENTIFICATION OF PATTERNS. I EVEN SUBMITTED 132 PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS OF PATTERNS NOT LISTED IN THIER BOOK. ONE OF THE PIECES LISTED AS UNKNOWN HAS A PATENT DATE ON IT. IT ONLY TOOK ME 15 MIN AT THE PATENT OFFICE TO FIND THE ORIGINAL PATENT SUBMISSION PAPERS, DRAWING AND NAME, AND AT THE TIME I WAS JUST A NOVICE STARTING TO LEARN, SINCE THEN I HAVE ADDED OVER 10,000 PIECES TO MY COLLECTION. MY INTENTION WAS TO ASSURE AN ACCURATE REFERANCE BOOK FOR PEOPLE TO USE. THIS IS NOT IT.
Rating: 
Summary: Information is great, but...
Review: it seems like there were a few errors. Some just typos and a few I'm not sure they are even errors. For example: A patent date of 1907 on the backstamp of one piece was listed in the book as a pattern issued in 1910. (Martha Washington EHH Smith, with the older <S> backstamp).Also, I wish Hagan would have put all the patterns listed for a manufacturer in just one seperate place in the book. If you look up a manufacturer, often times you will have to flip back and forth many, many times. She should have at least put an asterick by the page number where all the patterns of a manufacturer are. You'll eventually find your pattern, but you might be dizzy afterwards. This is my only flatware book, so I have nothing to compare it by. Other books may be worse as far as the little irritants I mentioned above.
Rating:
Summary: Information is great, but...
Review: it seems like there were a few errors. Some just typos and a few I'm not sure they are even errors. For example: A patent date of 1907 on the backstamp of one piece was listed in the book as a pattern issued in 1910. (Martha Washington EHH Smith, with the older backstamp). Also, I wish Hagan would have put all the patterns listed for a manufacturer in just one seperate place in the book. If you look up a manufacturer, often times you will have to flip back and forth many, many times. She should have at least put an asterick by the page number where all the patterns of a manufacturer are. You'll eventually find your pattern, but you might be dizzy afterwards. This is my only flatware book, so I have nothing to compare it by. Other books may be worse as far as the little irritants I mentioned above.
Rating: 
Summary: Index by Manufacturer's Mark needs much improvement
Review: There is an alphabetical index that implies that it lists all pages where patterns with a particular manufacturer's trademark are located. Unfortunately, this index is not very complete, so it is frequently necessary to look through MANY pages with related brands in order to identify a particular pattern. This is the biggest shortfall of this reference book. Also, some patterns appear more than once, under multiple manufacturers (due to the consolidation of the silverware industry), but other patterns that were made by multiple manufactuers do not appear under each manufacturer. These incomplete multiple listings aren't necessary, but if they remain the pages should be cross-referenced to each.
Rating:
Summary: Index by Manufacturer's Mark needs much improvement
Review: There is an alphabetical index that implies that it lists all pages where patterns with a particular manufacturer's trademark are located. Unfortunately, this index is not very complete, so it is frequently necessary to look through MANY pages with related brands in order to identify a particular pattern. This is the biggest shortfall of this reference book. Also, some patterns appear more than once, under multiple manufacturers (due to the consolidation of the silverware industry), but other patterns that were made by multiple manufactuers do not appear under each manufacturer. These incomplete multiple listings aren't necessary, but if they remain the pages should be cross-referenced to each.
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