Review (PDF) The Illustrated Directory Of Guns: A Collector's Guide To Over 1500 Military, Sporting And Antique Firearms

                
              
Review (PDF) 
The Illustrated Directory Of Guns: A Collector's Guide To Over 1500 Military, Sporting And Antique Firearms
The Illustrated Directory series provide readers with a fully illustrated, comprehensive, hardcover reference book packed with timelines, historical facts and images designed to inform and excite. At 512 pages packed with information and photographs, this book is a necessary addition to any enthusiast's library. The Illustrated Directory of Guns is the most ambitious and lavishly illustrated history of guns for the collector and enthusiast. It shows in clear, detailed photographs and text over 1500 guns with separate sections on Pistols, Revolvers, Rifles, Shotguns (military and sporting) Machine Guns, and Submachine guns. Organized A-Z by country and gunmaker's name, the book clearly shows the different types of gun which the world has used to hunt, wage war, break and defend its laws, hone its sharpshooting skills, and fire purely for the fun of it. The book also features an introduction on each section, which gives a brief history of the development of that particular kind of firearm.
Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Chartwell Books (April 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 078582801X
ISBN-13: 978-0785828013
Product Dimensions:  1.5 x 9 x 11.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 4.9 pounds
Average Customer Review:  4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,363,525 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)   #65 in Books > History > Military > Weapons & Warfare > Conventional > Firearms   #484 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Antiques & Collectibles > Firearms & Weapons > Firearms   #1759 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Hunting & Fishing > Hunting
First, the book does contain quite a bit of information on several types of guns, and the pictures are very clear and well done. There is a lot of good, if brief, historical information on quite a few interesting guns from around the world. I've enjoyed flipping through it with my kids introducing them to a lot of old weapons and explaining how they worked.However, the book doesn't feel like they finished it. There is no introduction, no index (which would be helpful for a "directory"), and a severely limited table of contents. There are sentences that just end in the middle. The word wrapping around some of the pictures is awkward and choppy.The book is arranged by type of weapon (pistols, revolvers, long arms, shotguns, machine guns, submachine guns, etc), then each section is loosely alphabetically arranged by country of origin and then loosely alphabetically by manufacturer and model. In the pistol section, I found my self going from flintlock to semi-auto and then back to cap-n-ball. The book seems to cover some brands, like Colt, Remington and Smith & Wesson in great details, but then skips over others. For example, the only Ruger revolver listed is the Model 117 Security Six. What about the Ruger Single Six, Vaquero, Blackhawk, Redhawk, or GP100? The book covers a couple older Czech semi-autos, but the CZ-75 and derivatives are nowhere to be found. For submachine guns the Israeli Uzi is absent. For machine guns, there is no mention of the Gatling Gun. I'm sure there are others, but the lack of an index or useful table of contents makes it hard to tell what is there and what is missing.I think this will be a good book once they get it out of the rough draft stage. Any decent word processor can produce a detailed Table of Contents and Index.
Lavishly presented, richly illustrated, impressive volume, but otherwise - another coffee-table book. Might be a good gift (for non-collector), useful as a general reference.Contras: the material is organized rather chaotically, the entries are not always justified, and the book is mainly concentrated on contemporary arms, misrepresenting true collectors' items, i.e. guns of the past: matchlocks, wheellocks, flintlocks (in particular) and percussion.The choice of these guns is occasional: France is left without Nicolas Boutet* - this is simply unforgivable! - without LePage and Gastinne Renette. England - no Robert Wogdon, no Twigg, Mortimer. No Purdey ! Imagine a guide to British paintings without Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, or Turner... One of the best gunsmiths in the world (Nock, Mantons) are there with the guns picked up from third-rate provincial salesrooms - where are the famous duellers in their glory? By the way, just to few of them (British gunmakers of the last century)we owe far too many important inventions, than to Flobert from France.Germany without Kuchenreuter?Belgian gunsmiths got somehow lost between "Austria" and "China", while Italy shared the fate of Belgium (not mentioned as a country), and came without superb Brescian guns.Russia had something in Tula already under Peter the Great - just few centuries before "TT", while Spain was world known for super miquelet locks - also few centuries before "Astra".I presume that if someone is about to produce a guns' directory for collectors, the illustrations should come from Bonhams, Thomas Del Mar, Maison Osenat, Hermann Historica - these are world leaders selling quality arms and armour (not only knowlegeable people, but willing to help).
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