Standard Companion to Non-American Carnival Glass by Bill Edwards, Mike Carwile (2006, Paperback, Illustrated)

This is currently the only widely available small-format field guide on carnival glass from Australia, Latin America, India and Europe. THE STANDARD COMPANION TO NON-AMERICAN CARNIVAL GLASS identifies pieces that crop up often, which is useful if you're dealing with a not-too-unusual piece: photographs are excellent and detailed. The book, however, offers little more than the names of pieces, their makers, and suggested values -- if you need more information, you'll have to look elsewhere.

If you use this guide, use it with some caution: the values in it tend to be wildly inflated compared to the actual price market. If you watch E-Bay, you'll see that many scarce and interesting carnival glass items from India, Latin America and Europe fetch absurdly low prices because American buyers are uncertain of how to verify the authenticity and rarity of foreign pieces, and because sellers lack the kind of information about the pieces' history and scarcity that spurs collector interest.

The guide is most useful if supplemented by other sources. More informative easy references are currently available on the web: most notably, the website tumblerworld.com, provides information on Indian, European and Latin American pieces in a more engaging and detailed format accompanied by many photographs. David Doty's website at ddoty.com similarly offers information on Australian glass, as well as photographs and descriptions of an array of European pieces. The website of International carnival glass authorities Glen and Stephen Thistlewood (geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/home.html) offers a number of articles on non-American carnival glass.

If you are looking for detailed information about the manufacture dates, scarcity and history of international carnival glassworks and pieces, you should turn to the Thistlewoods' book, A CENTURY OF CARNIVAL GLASS (2001): this is the most comprehensive widely available printed resource on international carnival glass, and covers pieces from India, China, Argentina, Peru, Mexico and six European countries.

Notably, the authors Edwards & Carwile are also the writers of THE STANDARD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CARNIVAL GLASS. That book's tenth edition offers a wealth of information on carnival glass from India. In it the authors make great use of the expertise and extensive collections of Vikram Bacchawat and Bob Smith, who have been responsible for documenting countless pieces of Indian carnival glass. THE SECG furnishes photographs and documentation of nearly 100 India glass patterns.


ADDED NOTE: The STANDARD COMPANION TO NON-AMERICAN CARNIVAL GLASS is published by Collector Books; pub. date 2006; 332 pages total, with color photographs; small format - 8.5 x 5.5 inches]

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