Dear Lee,

We all tend to trust the printed word. Unfortunately, inaccurate news reports, misleading Internet descriptions, and just plain bad books make their way into print. So how can you tell if a book on antiques is reliable? Look through the book for something you already know. We just received a new general book on antiques and flipped to the three paragraphs on Japanese woodblock prints. It explained little beyond the prints of late 19th-century military battles. We were amazed, because the greatest Japanese prints were produced much earlier. They’re the ones most often sought by collectors today. Then we found other errors and decided this was not a book to trust.

We always look for an index. If a book has no index, it is almost useless for research unless you want to page through hundreds of pages searching for your item. Photographs should be clear and uncluttered and should be captioned with as much information as possible. It is of no help to find a picture labeled, “Example of a fish platter.” Color photos are important for many items like pottery, but black and white is enough for tools or even furniture. Read a few paragraphs. Can you understand the writing? Two doctors discussing a patient will use many words unfamiliar to most of us. A museum-trained expert may do the same thing. If you don’t know what a “splat” is, and the word is not defined, you will find the book frustrating if not useless. Read the book jacket to see if the author has the experience necessary to write the book. A trained expert or a serious collector could. An old book, one written before 1950, may have been trusted then, but new research could have proven some of the information wrong. Decades ago, even encyclopedias said that President Millard Fillmore installed the first bathtub in the White House in 1851. Today we know the bathtub story was a hoax written by H.L. Mencken in 1917.

The Internet can be even less reliable than books. It offers much information you would have trouble finding in a library, but you have to be careful. Some well-meaning collectors set up personal websites filled with inaccuracies. Be especially wary of sales, auctions, and appraisals done totally online. Pictures can only tell part of a story. To evaluate an antique you must see the actual item in person. Our best advice is to read, study, talk to dealers and collectors, and remember: “If it’s too good to be true, it usually is.”