Comments

I received your Enamel Button book yesterday. You did an amazing job with it. Very informative and enjoyable to read. Thank you for signing it for me.

I went to the [my] button club Christmas lunch today. Instead of taking my favorite tray to show, I took your book. It took forever for it to get around the table. Everyone spent time looking through it. Several people said that they would be buying it.
- LP

You hit a home run!! Your first two books were impressive and set a new standard of enameling books but your third is clearly a winner!! I find every page has something that pulls you into that page and everything on it is new, exciting, informational, inspirational - I could go on and on. I was really blown away by the volume of material that is in this book! The button and enameling communities have been enriched.
- TE

Your book is magnificent!! I've so far only quickly perused it but am struck by how beautifully designed it is and is obviously meticulously researched. I'm looking forward to immersing myself in it. Brava!
- TO

Your new enamel book, which arrived the other day, is beyond phenomenal.
- CK

I received your book day before yesterday. It’s fabulous. Thank you for all your hard work.
- EC

I have arrived in London to your enamel book waiting for me and have at last had a few hours to sit in the quiet and read as much as I could take in in one sitting. 

Congratulations on a wonderful book. Your detail and ability to put enameled buttons in some sort of order is just perfect. You have explained the techniques for all of us button collectors to understand by using a button we may have and explaining how it was made. I think the only information I can see you have skirted around is the country an enamel has been produced in…is it an English enamel or a French enamel? This is a question I have been asking for 15 years now and still don’t have a satisfactory answer! But other than that one comment - and only because it is a question that has kept me awake at nights, the book is perfection. Thank-you SO much for taking on this huge task and filling a void in the button collecting world.

Congratulations again.
- SS

Reviews

Enamel Buttons: An Essential Resource for Collectors
Reprinted from The Buckeye State Button Society Bulletin, with permission

Enamel has an allure that perhaps is stronger than that of gold, at least for me.  And although it has taken a dozen years for me to build up a modest collection of enamel buttons, I still need to study and understand more about how these beauties were made.   So when Karen Cohen wrote her latest book, Enamel Buttons:  An Essential Resource for Collectors, I bought a copy, anticipating a masterful guide to enamel buttons.  I was not disappointed!

As one who has embraced the enameling technique since she was a youth, Karen has developed her skills over a lifetime and has shared in this book her knowledge of not only the history of enameling, but also the various enameling techniques, styles, and production of enameled buttons in various areas of the world.  The easy-to-navigate format makes learning about enamel buttons a pleasure.

A thorough examination of enameling as it relates to buttons, this book features numbered photographs of many examples, which are cross-referenced in the text at various places, where appropriate.  This feature allows the collector to gain a deeper understanding of concepts and to see examples that illustrate these concepts.  Included throughout the book are “Enamel Tech Talk” sidebars which provide additional details that complement the discussions of the various enamel types and methods.  

The six appendices add yet other valuable information about look-alikes, restoration, terminology differences, and Japanese enamel terminology.  The last appendix, a checklist, enumerates every possible type of enamel button collectors might want to acquire and includes a blank for writing the catalog number for that button (for those who catalog their buttons by number).

For collectors who want to know about their enamel buttons, this book is indispensable.  I will treasure this book as much as I do my enamel buttons!  To order a copy, visit kcenamels.com.

Carole Koontz, Editor, The Buckeye State Button Society Bulletin