The gifted artists who produced a spectacular range of lustre pottery.

Is hunting for hidden treasures at garage sales, flea markets, estate sales, auctions, and antique shops your idea of a good time? If you love to poke around these places but don't know the difference between something that is just plain old or something that is a bona fide antique, then you might want to make Antiquing For Dummies your next purchase. Written in Dummies-style plain English, this book is not your average highfalutin, highbrow book on antique collecting. Instead of getting a lot of attitude, you get loads of down-to-earth advice about talking the talk with antique dealers, participating in auctions, and using win-win bargaining strategies.

Authors Ron Zoglin and Deborah Shouse can help you develop a plan of attack before you begin your hunt. Even if you are already a dedicated collector, Antiquing For Dummies has plenty of sound advice and information to help you brush up on your collecting skills and broaden your knowledge. And whether you enjoy collecting furniture, glass, ceramics, or silver, you find sections in the book dedicated to each collectible that tell you how and where to buy them. Plus, after you've found that beautiful antique, you find decorating ideas and suggestions for integrating it into your household. Antiquing For Dummies is guaranteed to show you the pleasure and art of antique collecting.

The rivetingly strange story of the world's most expensive bottle of wine, and the even stranger characters whose lives have intersected with it.

The New York Times bestseller, updated with a new epilogue, that tells the true story of a 1787 Château Lafite Bordeaux—supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson—that sold for $156,000 at auction and of the eccentrics whose lives intersected with it.

Was it truly entombed in a Paris cellar for two hundred years? Or did it come from a secret Nazi bunker? Or from the moldy basement of a devilishly brilliant con artist? As Benjamin Wallace unravels the mystery, we meet a gallery of intriguing players—from the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women to the obsessive wine collector who discovered the bottle.

Suspenseful and thrillingly strange, this is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a powerhouse franchise ever since the debut of the indie comic book back in 1984. The TMNT have captivated kids and those young at heart for over thirty years now with several movies, multiple cartoon series, ongoing comics and one of the most extensive and playable toylines in history. The golden era of TMNT for many fans was from 1988 to 1995 and it's that vintage era that this book aims to focus on. When you're dealing with such an expansive franchise it's essential to nail down a focus and the original cartoon and movies are still regarded by many fans as the definitive TMNT. In this book author, collector and pop culture historian Matt MacNabb, who runs NinjaTurtlesCollector.com, examines everything from the Playmates toyline to the more obscure product offerings - from fast food toys, food product, school supplies and trading cards to video games, VHS and books.

This guide provides concise, interesting and practical details on uncommon gems that are now being used by designers to create distinctive jewelry. It not only lists the identification properties of the gems, but tells you where they are found, how they are used, why they are unique, how they are priced, and how to care for them. High quality photos show the different colors, cutting styles and varieties of each gem and give you ideas on how each can be used creatively in jewelry. Written in a succinct, user-friendly style, this is a companion book to Newman's "Gemstone Buying Guide" and an ideal reference for jewelers, sales associates, appraisers, gem collectors, gemology students, gem dealers and consumers. The following gems are discussed and illustrated in Rare Gemstones: amblygonite, andalusite, apatite, aragonite, axinite, azurite, benitoite, bixbite, brazilianite, bronzite, calcite, cobaltocalcite, charoite, chrysocolla, cuprite, danburite, diaspore, diopside, dumortierite, enstatite, epidote, fluorite, gaspeite, hauyne, hematite, hemimorphite, howlite, idocrase, jeremejevite, kornerupine, kyanite, larimar, lepidolite, magnesite, marcasite, maw-sit-sit, moldavite, obsidian, pectolite, phenakite, phosphosiderite, prehnite, psilomelane, pyrite, red beryl, rhodochrosite, rhodonite, scapolite, scheelite, seraphinite, serpentine, sodalite, sillimanite, smithsonite, sphalerite, sphene, sugilite, taaffeite, titanite, tugtupite, unakite, variscite, vesuvianite and zultanite.

The brand with the crown is recognized worldwide as an invaluable sports implement and luxury product. In little more than one hundred years, it has become one of the most successful and innovative watch brands on the planet. Rolex manufactures more than a half a million wristwatches per year while maintaining an outstanding reputation and near-perfect quality. From the beginning, the sponsorship of statesmen, movie stars, and athletes has driven its success, but the company has expanded to include more than just the rich and famous. The Rolex Oyster became the first watch to defy the elements when, in 1927, Mercedes Gleitze wore one while she swam the English Channel. In 1933, the company patented the first automatic winding mechanism. Learn more about this history and read updated reports written about new Rolex ideas and performance tests featured in the German watch magazine Armbanduhren (Wristwatch) from the past 15 years.

In this fascinating volume, china-ware expert Geoffrey Godden shows how collectable and decorative New Hall Porcelain is. The factory produced over three thousand patterns which served to enhance a long series of attractive yet very functional forms. They were welcomed for their excellence over a period of over fifty years, from 1782 to 1835. The success of these pleasing Staffordshire porcelains in the marketplace helped to turn the Staffordshire Potteries, then famed only for its earthenwares, into a porcelain-producing centre of world importance. The New Hall firm in England were market-leaders in their own time, their shapes and styles widely copied by their several imitators. New Hall Porcelains presents historical facts in a novel, helpful manner, supporting with a broad selection of clear illustrations. Geoffrey Godden is able to illustrate how diverse and attractive these Staffordshire 'Real China' porcelains can be, placing New Hall in its rightful position in the study of British porce

Every person who owns a pinball machine, or who is thinking of buying one, will find a wealth of valuable information and step-by-step help in this thorough, updated manual. For electromechanical and electronic machines: choosing and buying a pinball machine; different types and vintages of machines; components and features; setup and game adjustments; how to maintain, clean, and service your machine; setting machines for free play; troubleshooting; repairs you can do yourself; keeping the flippers "hot"; sources for parts, tools, schematics, game manuals, and professional repairs; starting your own pinball business; and much more. Illustrated with more than 200 detailed photos and diagrams, including rare and beautiful machines from the Pacific Pinball Museum, one of the world's largest collections of pinball machines, from the 1930s to today.

The nineteenth century was a time of intense monetization of social life: increasingly money became the only means of access to goods and services, especially in the new metropolises; new technologies and infrastructures emerged for saving and circulating money and for standardizing coinage; and paper currencies were printed, founded purely on trust without any intrinsic metallic value. But the monetary landscape was ambivalent so that the forces unifying monetary practice (imperial and national currencies, global monetary standards such as the gold standard) coexisted with the proliferation of local currencies. Money became a central issue in politics, the arts, and sciences - and the modern discipline of economics was born, with its claim to a monopoly on knowing and governing money. Drawing upon a wealth of visual and textual sources, A Cultural History of Money in the Age of Empire presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of technologies, ideas, ritual and religion, the everyday, art and representation, interpretation, and the issues of the age.

Bracketed by global financial crises and economic downturns, the modern age has been defined by debates about, and transformations of, money. The period witnessed the consolidation of national currencies and monetary policies as well as the diversification of payment technologies and the proliferation of financial instruments. Throughout, even as it appeared abstracted by finance and depoliticized by expert ideologies, money was revealed again and again to be a powerful medium of cultural imagination and practical inventiveness as well as the site of public and political struggles. Modern money - both as a form of liquidity and as a claim on wealth - remains deeply unsettled, caught between private and public interests and subject to epic struggles over the infrastructures of value creation and circulation and their distributional consequences. Drawing upon a wealth of visual and textual sources, A Cultural History of Money in the Modern Age presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of technologies, ideas, ritual and religion, the everyday, art and representation, interpretation, and the issues of the age.

Why live in the box? Populate your world with any alien, superhero, historical, action, horror, or science-fiction figure you can "Just imagine." Minifigure Customization 2: Why Live in the Box? takes an advanced look at the hobby, introducing more complex techniques to alter the lovable LEGO minifigure, and building on the techniques introduced in the first book. It features tutorials on virtual customization, designing decals and advanced decal application, custom part modification and creation, including 3-D printing, advanced painting techniques, lighting figures with LEDs or EL wire, tips on minifigure displays, and digital photography tips to capture your custom figures in the best light. Essential tools used to create custom figures are identified and updated, and a Gallery of custom minifigures from top customizers is included, where they share their favorite tips and tricks.

Stuck On You charts the history of football stickers in the UK - those little bundles of self-adhesive joy that have given so much to so many since Panini burst on to the scene in the late 1970s. Immerse yourself in a story of bitter rivalry, media moguls and the seedy underbelly of what can be a surprisingly murky business. Discover how upstarts Merlin took on the might of Panini and beat them at their own game - only for the Italian giants to hit back with the weight of nostalgia behind them. But ultimately you're invited to wallow in wistful memories of swapping in the school playground, shinies and recurring doubles. Featuring interviews with many of the industry's leading historical players and images from some familiar and lesser-known collections, Stuck On You is a must-read for anyone who has ever spent months, if not years, hankering after the St Mirren badge.

The international literary icon opens his eclectic closet and shares photos of his extensive unique personal T-shirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of the writer rarely seen by the public. Haruki Murakami's books have galvanized millions around the world. Many of his fans know about his 10,000-vinyl-record collection, and his obsession with running, but few have heard about a more intimate, and perhaps more unique, passion: his T-shirt-collecting habit. In Murakami T, the famously reclusive novelist shows us his T-shirts - including gems found in bookshops, charity shops and record stores - from those featuring whisky, animals, cars and superheroes, to souvenirs of marathons and a Beach Boys concert in Honolulu, to the shirt that inspired the beloved short story 'Tony Takitani'. Accompanied by short, frank essays that have been translated into English for the first time, these photographs reveal much about Murakami's multifaceted and wonderfully eccentric persona. 'The world's most popular cult novelist' Guardian

This richly illustrated book introduces readers to "the golden one," as Rebula has been lovingly described. Rebula grapes, an ancient varietal once prized by princes and popes, are indigenous to the region that now straddles the border between Italy and Slovenia. On the Italian side the area is called Collio, in Slovenia Goriska Brda. It has been rated by experts as among the top five wine terroirs on the planet, shoulder to shoulder with Bordeaux and Tuscany. Wine experts agree, calling Rebula "a dream wine of a new age." Rebula was rated the World's Best Wine in 2010 by sommelier Luca Gardini, and a Rebula has received an astounding 100 points on Wine Spectator's 100-point scale. Beautifully designed with full-color photographs, the book recounts the fascinating story of Rebula and the history of wine in what was once Yugoslavia and is now Slovenia. The protagonist is a remarkable vintner, Zvonimir Simcic, one of the founders of what was Yugoslavia's most important winery before the country fragmented. Almost single-handedly responsible for the preservation of Rebula, he resurrected the forgotten varietal and transformed his home region, spectacular Goriska Brda, from a poverty-stricken area into one of the globe's great wine destinations. Pulitzer finalist Noah Charney provides a personal, humorous, deeply engaged travelogue through the little-known world of Slovenian wine that will delight adventurous travelers and wine lovers everywhere.

Sunday Times bestseller 'When I see something old, that I think is beautiful, special, valuable, it's not about the money. It's about being in another time and place.' Star of TV's Salvage Hunters, Drew Pritchard will go to the greatest lengths for the best deals. He discovered the casts Lord Elgin made of his infamous marbles in a school garage, and broke the bank to buy the tool box Malcolm Campbell used when he set the water speed record in 1934. He made a million. Lost it. And made it again. The face of the compulsively fascinating business of finding and restoring lost treasures, visionary Drew takes us up and down the country, into garages, factories, schools and pubs, digging out incredible items from that 'other time and place'. Then by lovingly restoring them, he brings our history back to life. A flat cap among silver spoons and old school ties, our favourite no-bullshit expert may be a one-off, but his story makes us all dream of that obscure piece of antiquity gathering dust in the garden shed...