Arts & Crafts Collector's Guide, The
How do you distinguish quality, beautiful Arts and Crafts objects from the mass of over-priced, damaged leftovers? Which buys are likely to increase in value? And perhaps the question that cuts to the heart of antique assessment: How can you learn to adeptly discern the soul of a handcrafted piece?  This insider's guide to collecting Arts and Crafts is an indispensable resource for every collector-from serious connoisseur to part-time hobbyist. Packed with sage advice for evaluating pieces from the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Arts and Crafts movement, this handbook focuses on art pottery, mission furniture, wrought metal, and period lighting.  Amply ilIllustrated with vibrant, high-quality photographs highlighting nuanced details of period pieces, this thorough guidebook immerses you in the dynamic world of antique collectables. Indeed, from the opening pages, you'll learn to distinguish what's good, what's reasonably priced, and what's likely to bring you a great deal of enjoyment, increase in value, or both. Quickly flip through the pages to admire the extraordinary period pieces or carefully peruse the comprehensive analyses of each maker.David Rago oversees three auction companies and two quarterly magazines, each specializing in a particular area of twentieth-century decorative arts and furnishings. He lectures nationally and is an expert decorative ceramics and porcelain appraiser for the hit PBS series The Antiques RoadShow.Rago's credits also include hundreds of articles written for trade and consumer publications and decorative ceramics books. His most recent, Miller's American Art Pottery: Treasure or Not?, co-written with Suzanne Perrault, was published in October 2001, as was Collecting Modern, a collaboration with John Sollo.Rago was only sixteen when he became a dealer in American art ceramics. By his mid-twenties, he had expanded his expertise to include mission furniture, wrought metal, lighting, and other decorative objects from turn-of-the-century America and Europe. He further advanced his knowledge at the Jordan-Volpe Gallery in Manhattan.David Rudd has operated Dalton's American Decorative Arts for over twenty years. He specializes in decorative arts of the twentieth century with an emphasis on Stickley mission oak furniture and accessories of the American Arts and Crafts movement, including art pottery, metalwork, and textiles.Rudd has served as exhibition consultant to the Everson Museum of Art and Rochester Institute of Technology, consultant and appraiser of architectural renderings for the Onondaga Historical Society, consultant to Christie's Auction House, and committee member at the Everson Museum. Rudd is currently an independent appraiser for a specialty auction house in New Jersey, contributing writer to the quarterly magazine American Bungalow, and president of the board of directors of the Central New York Arts and Crafts Society.Suzans Sliker has worked at the Mission Oak Shop and Aurora Studios in Putnam, Connecticut, for nearly ten years. She specializes in furniture, lighting, and textiles of the Arts and Crafts period. Sliker has edited numerous articles on the Arts and Crafts movement and is currently involved in a collaborative book project on the Saturday Evening Girls with other scholars