2008-07-06 Beautiful book, but purely for the beginner!

I admit I am obsessed by Matchbox, specifically Superfast! This book includes Superfast as a main topic, and a review I read indicated it was suitable both for the starter and established collector, so I purchased it! It is indeed a superb book, very clever and original in its diminuative format, with an interesting introduction, and superb photography. I knew a book so miniature in size could not begin to be comprehensive, but I still feel it is a missed opportunity. For the beginner this book is absolutely ideal, for the established collector, it serves very little purpose. Though I accept it could only ever hope to capture one picture of each model variant, I was surprised to find that it also only gave one estimated price, for the easiest to find example in each case. This despite nearly all pages having sufficient room to list prices for at least three or four variants. It would have been far more interesting if the easiest to find model, the toughest, and an example somewhere in between were noted, there is room without doubt. Although the author does state that prices are always in flux, and it is a bad idea to argue with a seller over price, the fact remains that someone with limited knowledge would have difficulty relating the standard version quotes given here with prices for the many many harder to find models available. There is an eight page section devoted to rare regular wheel models, which is excellent even though I do not collect them, and helps to aleviate this issue to a degree. I was astonished to find, however, that no such section was availed to the Superfast range, despite a plethora of possible entries which could have filled 100 pages, a really strange decision in my opinion. The inclusion of Models of Yesteryear also seems totally incongruous to the content of this book, as no other larger range is shown, and it almost seems like the author merely wished to show us that he collected these as well! The later, post 1982 models are shown as a very random affair, although a good variety are photographed, there are many many variants missed out, which is quite irritating!
There are also a few too many errors, the #66 Mazda RX500 is omitted altogether, and a #26 Cable Truck is shown sitting on the exact same box as the Site Dumper on the previous page: it seems hard to imagine this collector did not have the correct box! A rare #38 Army Jeep with foiled wheels is priced as a standard model, as is a white roofed Dodge Challenger Revin Rebel, and several of the more recent models are estimated at prices which they would never realise, modest though the quotes are. I may seem overcritical here, I appreciate prices are incredibly difficult to pin down, and this book at this size has to be limited in its scope by design. However the fact remains that it could have contained much more information than it does, to make it both a valuable tool to the new collector, and to satisfy the experienced collector. On this second front I really feel it is a missed opportunity. Dump the Models of Yesteryear in the 3rd edition, include Superfast rare models, a fuller range of post 1982 examples, and give a bottom, middle and top quote for each of the regular and 69-82 Superfast ranges. The book would then be perfection!