Both gorgeous and useful, "Antique Coffee Grinders", by Michael L. White, is a wonderful book for anyone wanting to build their collection of vintage household items – OR looking for the perfect coffee table book.
For the coffee table book bunch, it would be hard to imagine a more perfect piece. "Antique Coffee Grinders" weighs about 3 1/2 pounds and sports around 600 photographs (color), so while it isn't unwieldy, you'll know you've got something formidable in your hands when you pick it up – just holding it in your lap conveys the weight of coffee making history it recounts. Guests who enjoy their coffee (or who appreciate high quality, old fashioned house wares) are certain to enjoy paging through this book.
But charming as this book is, its true value is found in what it offers the collector of old fashioned (primarily antique) coffee grinders and mills. Chronicling more than 300 years worth of grinder history, the antique devotee will find an abundance of information to facilitate their quest for new pieces.
Make no mistake: "Antique Coffee Grinders" doesn't spell out where to shop for the real treasures. That is up to you. Online auctions, flea markets, garage sales or actual antique stores are all possibilities, and hopefully the hunt is part of the fun you get from collecting vintage items. Enjoy it!
But having found good sources for quality, old fashioned coffee grinders, one of any collector's biggest challenges is telling the difference between trash and treasure. That is where this book shines – providing enormously detailed information about the maker of any particular coffee mill and how much a well maintained coffee mill could be worth to the serious antique collector. Some collectors just like getting their mitts on anything old (and the older, the better), but if you gather these vintage pieces in order to build a portfolio with negotiable value, 'who made it', 'when they made it', ' where they made it ', and' how much someone might pay for it 'are all critical bits of information. You'll have a difficult time finding a better resource than "Antique Coffee Grinders" to make sure you have those bits!
All in all, I have to say without qualification: this is a fine book. If you love good old fashioned coffee grinders – the real antique stuff – adding this to your library is a 'no-lose' move.
