Book Review: The Vickers Machine Gun - Pride of the Emma Gees
7m 13s
There are a number of older Collector Grade reference books that became outrageously expensive after going out of print, and Dolf Goldsmith's "Grand Old Lady of No Man's Land" about the Vickers MG is one of them. However, last year (2021) Dolf worked with Dan Shea at Chipotle Publishing (and contributors Richard Fisher and Robert Segel) to print a new expanded edition of the book. This book has been the authoritative reference work on the Vickers since its original printing in 1994, and it is excellent to see it available again.
Excepting a small number of minor additions (helpfully identified by in the text with indicator lines in the margin) the main manuscript remains the same as the original printing. A few layout elements were tweaked (photo sizes, for example) but it is practically speaking unchanged. The new material consists of two main elements: 120+ pages of new illustrations and 80 pages on Vickers memorabilia. The new illustrations appear to me to be all the photos Dolf originally included when submitted the book to Collector Grade, but which were cut from the original print edition. There are also a couple more short elements of added material, including Dan Shea's full 2006 interview with Dolf, a section of a Vickers gun restoration, and some nice color glamour photography.
In short, this new printing is everything the original book was, plus a bunch of new material, and available for a reasonable retail price at last ($130).