Three Centuries of American Antiques 3

The hardcover edition THREE CENTURIES OF AMERICAN ANTIQUES used in this review is the 1979 Bonanza reprint edition that was so ubiquitous in bookstores of that time. According to a tag on the book you were receiving a $51.50 value for only $24.95, and that was not too far from the truth. Back in the 1960's American Heritage magazine was going strong guided by several able historians, Bruce Catton being one, another Marshall B. Davidson. In addition to publishing 6 hardcover American Heritage magazines each year American Heritage began publishing hardcover history books. Some of their many books led to individual volumes on colonial America, the revolutionary war, the American Civil War, and The Confident Years (America between the Civil War and WWI) and World War I. In addition to these individual books, somewhat as companion volumes, they published 3 volumes on antiques of the periods mentioned: colonial antiques, Revolutionary to Civil War antiques, and antiques from the Civil War period to World War I. The books came in two versions, one with cloth binding having a dust jacket, or the more expensive buckram, generally burgundy in color. Prices ran from approximately $19.95 or an additional 2.50 per book if the deluxe buckram edition was desired. Should you be a current member of American Heritage as I was for many years, you could place your order direct with them at Marion, Ohio, while receiving a discount of a couple dollars per book. All the books were originally available as single volumes but eventually also in deluxe boxed sets of two books. As I write this I see my boxed set for Colonial America containing The Thirteen Colonies and Colonial Antiques, and another boxed set for The Rise of the Republic containing Making of the Nation 1783-1860 and American Antiques from the Revolution to the Civil War. I have the boxed set of the Civil War (2 volumes) and The Confident Years and the accompanying volume entitled The American Heritage History of Antiques, from the Civil War to World War I. A final boxed set I have is a 2 volume Deluxe set of The Artists' and Writers' America (bound in blue buckram) from the year 1973 with an extant card telling me my set retailed for $24.95. This set came direct from the Marion, Ohio, distribution center. Other volumes of history along with these were The Great West, The Indian Wars, World War I, The 20s and 30s, and World War II. If one is fortunate to have all these volumes an American Heritage history of our republic from the thirteen colonies through the 1920s and 30s, and their antiques, can quickly be seen to have been issued by the old American Heritage publishing company. A worthy effort at the time as far as both American history and American culture is concerned. While the days of the American Heritage hardcover magazines of the 1950s and 60s and the later American Heritage history books have long since past, these numerous over-sized, well bound and sewn, volumes continue to allow us