Archive for category Author: Mike Lambert
Collector's Logbook || Linda & Mike Lambert
Posted by henry in Author: Linda Lambert, Author: Mike Lambert, Publisher: A&C Black, Subject: Collecting on February 4, 2008
The basic idea behind this book is both very neat and utterly bizarre and it is, I think, something you’ll either buy the moment you see it or put it back on the shelf shaking your head in disbelief.
Let me explain. It consists entirely of 50 pages set up as record cards so that you can write down the details of your collection, whatever it may be, to provide a record of when and where you bought each item, how much you paid, who made it, a photograph of it (essential for insurance purposes) and any other notes you think might be useful. There’s also an “index” at the back which, the accompanying blurb explains, “will provide the collector with quick access to the items included”. Well, yes, insofar as a summary of the items in page order will do this.
Yes, it is a neat idea and, for the collector who’s just starting out, it’s a very good primer in record keeping. Its problem is that there are only 50 pages, but this is also its strength because if, after 50 items, you haven’t set up a much better system, then your collection (matchbox labels, Star Wars action figures, fine wines, paintings of Bristol Temple Meads station or whatever), is going to be in a terrible mess.
For anyone else, you really do have to (and you certainly will) set up a better system, probably based on index cards or maybe a computer database. Anything, pretty much, that can be ordered and re-ordered, not kept in a running page-order sequence. If you can’t see this, then you can’t really call yourself a serious collector. But, if you’re a beginner, then a bit of a kick-start won’t go amiss. I’m not going to be uncharitable and say you could tell someone this on one side of an A4 sheet, but you could.
Long ago, I bought a collector’s record system program for my Sinclair ZX81 computer. It was so bad I was moved to write my own database, which I wouldn’t otherwise have done, so you see, great oaks can grow out of tiny acorns.
Buy this if you think you need it or, better still, you know someone who needs it but doesn’t know they do. Otherwise, buy a pack of record cards.
A&C Black 2008
£9.99
