Mine arrived yesterday from Cotswold Road & Race. Excellent service from them again. Book looks excellent, my only very minor and personal criticism is the books themselves aren’t numbered, just the accompanying card. I have numbers 130 & 131, the latter for my son for when he grows up to join the number 31 of the Postcard and Sales Drive from Maranello books. I did request # 31 but this had already been distributed via another channel so Andy Massen secured 131 for me.
The third book in that series, La Nascita, credits Doug Nye alongside Nathan Beehl and Ronald Stern as a co-author.
I have to say that I am somewhat disappointed in this book at first glance. Quite a lot of photographs have been poorly reproduced in a size way beyond what their resolution comfortably allows. Why, for instance, was it necessary to use the hideously pixelated image that covers page 79 and part of page 78, apparently sourced from the Internet? It is a studio picture of a Series I GTO. Were no others available? My personal preference is also for the picture credits to accompany the photograph rather than be in a separate section in the back. More positively, the cover and slipcase design are very nice and the text (at first glance only) looks to be up to Doug Nye's usual high standard. It is also a sensible size so you can lift it and read it without needing surgery afterwards.
Horton's sent mine. Should arrive some time next week. Had good luck with DHL in past purchases from Horton's but you never know if the shipping gods frown on me.
I totally agree: The strength of the book lies in the superb writing and the comprehensive in-depth research. One of the chapters I like most is the one dealing with Scaglietti, which mentions the numerous so-far unknown people who actually built the GTOs. The treatment of many images is mediocre, indeed, especially compared to how Porter Press reproduced images in its GTO publication. The red cover design of the standard edition as well as the craftsmanship of the leather livery of the Uber edition are splendid.
Number 161 arrived four days early, well packaged and protected. Thanks to Horton's and DHL. It's white cotton glove time now.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has some white cotton gloves. I know when I use them my wife thinks I'm very peculiar. But for cloth covered books, it stops finger oil marks appearing
The reason we chose buckram for the Miura book slipcases. Cloth is really nice and has more colours (like bright green) but marks very easily. Brown cover Konradsheim 2.7 RS book is a bad one. I'm not sure how you can get marks off. I think I am getting my copy tomorrow.
Buckram is far better than cloth. Leather is best. Alcantara is no good, in fact a cheap industrial product usually sold expensively.
Not being an expert in book coverings, but I've noticed that Palawan books now are buckram. Is that material also less likely to suffer sun damage? Still, many books still use cloth, which I think is not the best choice as keeping even the dust off them is a challenge. With al that said though, I do think the design of the covers is excellent on the GTO 64 book
First impressions after a slow page through: Slipcase and covers unmarked; no printing issues such as smears or color photos sticking; well laid out with easy to read double-spaced text; overall photo quality is excellent with some truly astonishing; a few smaller portrait photos not so good but the subjects were relatively (to me anyway) obscure with perhaps few other sources; my initial overall impressions are very positive. This was an expensive book for me but I am glad I pulled the trigger. Will be keeping it in the publisher's box since it won't fit in my old glassed in lawyers' bookcases.
I got the gloves idea from Opus when they included a set of white gloves with the book, then I went to the supermarket and bought a few more pairs. One of the worst book coverings is a black low sheen finish, like Ferrari Engines by Haynes. If you've eaten potatoes chips in the last 24 hours it will show up with fingermarks on the cover.
Today I got the #330 card and box - there was also an unnumbered book with them The book arrived in perfect shape, the book was in a numbered box (which I suspect was the packaging from the publisher) and this box was in another box prepared by the bookshop (Motors Mania from France). I still need to read it...
#250 arrived today, perfect packaging from Motors Mania. Book looks impressive. Hours of reading fun ahead.
Did you want to start making a registry list of numbers and owners. Yet to physically receive it but you can add me as book #120/1,000.
May I add; the photo captions text is awful; too small and light grey on the white paper. A victory for design over practicality! Nathan
It becomes a bit embarrassing to receive books from which book(s) and/or slipcase have some dirt marks. The red slip case of the GTO 64 book (#375/1000) has a black spot (ink, grease, …?). Librairie Motors Mania has been so kind to replace the slip case of the 250 GTO books (Porter Press), hopefully I can count on the same service. Any advice to possibly remove it, is welcome. Frank M Image Unavailable, Please Login
I think we've discussed this before. Why do publishers persist in doing this? To me it isn’t even a positive design element. I guess the idea is that the photograph has higher contrast if the caption is in a lighter ink. I pay a lot of money for something I expect to be easily readable. Why intentionally make it difficult for me to do so? Has anybody ever purchased a book because it has light grey print? “Oh, look! It has that difficult to read print. That’s for me!” These days, how many of us even see the pages before we buy a book? Presumably in GTO64 this applies only to photo captioning as Nathan has stated, and that the main text is in unfashionable black ink to satisfy us old gits.
Yes the main text is in black ink. I think the intention is to differentiate the photo captions from the main body text. I suspect part of the reason for this kind of thing is that the layout will be done on computer which will have a different contrast to the final printed volume. I don't know enough to know at what point there is an actual properly printed proof copy and how much latitude there is to change things at that point. Having said which, an experienced book designer ought to know enough to judge text colours that work (and photo resolutions for that matter).