Lladro Authorized Reference Guide

Rating:
Summary: Lladro Authorized Reference Guide
Review: A must have book for Lladro collectors and dealers! Comprehensive, easy to locate each item, great reference for issue date, retire date, original cost and replacement plus great pictures! The best price guide reference book for Lladros. Well worth the price! Great friendly seller, fast shipping, quick email responses, will buy from again!

Rating:
Summary: Updated Gem
Review: All the info of the 98 edition with some of the missing pieces now listed. Even includes the 2000 Lladro introductions. Auction prices can be a bit high, do your own research on the internet, somwhere like ebay to find true market prices. All in all a very welcome update, at an excellent price, if you love Lladro, buy one. UPDATE This is to be the last, there will be no 2002 book as expected, buy this while you can, it will become hard to find and no doubt expensive. NEW INFO after much preasure on the publisher there is to be a new edition in June 2003.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Guide for Educated Lladro Collecting and Selling
Review: As a Lladro collector for more than 25 years, this is by far the best up-to-date, information-packed guide to buying, collecting and even selling or auctioning world famous Lladró. It is comprehensive in providing even the novice collector with a good 'grounding' in the value of these highly desirable porcelain collectibles (not to mention it IS the most sought after and collected porcelain of all famous brands, worldwide!). One of the better features, which was also in the 1996/98 guides, is the information on high and low auction prices for retired and hard to find pieces. This is an excellent feature of the guide, considering the explosion of on-line auction sites. The owner of this guide will be able to spot a 'good buy' on an auction. This is especially true when a piece is set for auction at a price well below or above what it has been valued. I have acquired many highly desirable pieces, armed with this valuation information. This is where the guide pays off! Bidding, buying or selling can be a gratifying experience, when armed with the knowledge pricing and value.

I continue to have a concern with the lack of cross referencing the number assigned to each piece with the title of the piece. I have met many collectors who will know a Lladró work by name and haven't a clue about the identifying number of that work. This is especially true if the original box of the piece is no longer available. The guide lists the pieces by number and page number where it can be found in the guide. Frustration will and does set in when only the name is known. As a collector, wanting to make a buying or bidding decision, one doesn't have the time to plow through 730+ pages to find information quickly. This is an enhancement the Lladró company should consider when the 2002 guide goes to print. The guide also lists the Lladró pieces by the year retired. The retirement date listings prove of minimal value, unless you just happen to know the year the mold was broken. A novice or even a seasoned collector would probably have little reason to refer to these pages in the back of the book. Just listing an item number, without the name of any piece in question, leaves room only to scatch one's head and play guessing games. Retrieval of information in a short amount of time is critical in today's environment.

Still, this book is worth the investment for the amount of valuable information it contains.

In the future, this reference source needs to become far more user friendly and informative by providing a glossary of terms, e.g., what is the difference between a piece that is 'open edition' versus 'open issue', as well as cross referencing. It is this type of information that will help the buyer or secondary market seller, when setting prices or supporting a buying or bidding decision. The love of collecting these beautiful pieces is unlikely to fade. Future publications of this reference guide would be even more effective by keeping in mind the collector's information needs and level of exposure to the world of collecting Lladró.
01/06/02...update! Sorry to learn that the 2000 issue is 'the' Last reference guide that Lladro Co. will issue..the marketing strategy and the new direction this world famous company is now moving toward has changed dramatically, thus resulting in discontinuing the arduous effort to publish this guide every two years. Get this guide while still available; the most one will get from Lladro now will be a yearly pamphlet of the current retired pieces (if you have the presence of mind to contact Lladro and ask for it)...good luck..Happy Lladro hunting/collecting!

Rating:
Summary: Very Good Guide for Educated Lladro Collecting and Selling
Review: As a Lladro collector for more than 25 years, this is by far the best up-to-date, information-packed guide to buying, collecting and even selling or auctioning world famous Lladró. It is comprehensive in providing even the novice collector with a good 'grounding' in the value of these highly desirable porcelain collectibles (not to mention it IS the most sought after and collected porcelain of all famous brands, worldwide!). One of the better features, which was also in the 1996/98 guides, is the information on high and low auction prices for retired and hard to find pieces. This is an excellent feature of the guide, considering the explosion of on-line auction sites. The owner of this guide will be able to spot a 'good buy' on an auction. This is especially true when a piece is set for auction at a price well below or above what it has been valued. I have acquired many highly desirable pieces, armed with this valuation information. This is where the guide pays off! Bidding, buying or selling can be a gratifying experience, when armed with the knowledge pricing and value.

I continue to have a concern with the lack of cross referencing the number assigned to each piece with the title of the piece. I have met many collectors who will know a Lladró work by name and haven't a clue about the identifying number of that work. This is especially true if the original box of the piece is no longer available. The guide lists the pieces by number and page number where it can be found in the guide. Frustration will and does set in when only the name is known. As a collector, wanting to make a buying or bidding decision, one doesn't have the time to plow through 730+ pages to find information quickly. This is an enhancement the Lladró company should consider when the 2002 guide goes to print. The guide also lists the Lladró pieces by the year retired. The retirement date listings prove of minimal value, unless you just happen to know the year the mold was broken. A novice or even a seasoned collector would probably have little reason to refer to these pages in the back of the book. Just listing an item number, without the name of any piece in question, leaves room only to scatch one's head and play guessing games. Retrieval of information in a short amount of time is critical in today's environment.

Still, this book is worth the investment for the amount of valuable information it contains.

In the future, this reference source needs to become far more user friendly and informative by providing a glossary of terms, e.g., what is the difference between a piece that is 'open edition' versus 'open issue', as well as cross referencing. It is this type of information that will help the buyer or secondary market seller, when setting prices or supporting a buying or bidding decision. The love of collecting these beautiful pieces is unlikely to fade. Future publications of this reference guide would be even more effective by keeping in mind the collector's information needs and level of exposure to the world of collecting Lladró.
01/06/02...update! Sorry to learn that the 2000 issue is 'the' Last reference guide that Lladro Co. will issue..the marketing strategy and the new direction this world famous company is now moving toward has changed dramatically, thus resulting in discontinuing the arduous effort to publish this guide every two years. Get this guide while still available; the most one will get from Lladro now will be a yearly pamphlet of the current retired pieces (if you have the presence of mind to contact Lladro and ask for it)...good luck..Happy Lladro hunting/collecting!