Looking at William Nordner's How To Build books

Back in February 2020 I wrote a post on Vince reminding me about an old book called How to Build Model Cars by William Nordner. At the time I couldn't find a copy online, but did come across another Nordner book called How to Build Model Ships, which I bought. Recently I found a copy of the Cars book online and bought it, although it wasn't in my usual 'reasonable price' category :-( It seems to be much rarer than Ships, and commands a corresponding price.

I took the Cars book out of Cedarbrae library many times in the early '70s. Although I clearly remembered the cover, I couldn't recall anything inside that made it so compelling. Back then anything to do with model building meant I'd read it many times regardless of quality. Interestingly, I don't recall seeing the Ships book at the library even though both indicate they were published in 1969.

The copy of Cars I bought came from the Sheffield Township Library in Sheffield, Pennsylvania. From the due date record in the back it was only borrowed 8 times between 1970 and 1990. If this had come from Cedarbrae library, it would have been borrowed at least 8 times by me alone in 1970 :-)  

I think these books were aimed at boys aged 9 to 14 or so, and I was in the targeted demographic. I remember Cars filed in the children's section in the library. 

If the price tag on Cars is actually from 1969, that $2.95 converts to around $22 in today's money. Seems a little pricey for a children's book, but maybe it was mainly for libraries?

Both books are jam packed with excellent black-and-white pen and ink drawings. There are no photographs at all in either of these books. The back covers say Nordner illustrated them as well as writing the text, so he was clearly a top notch illustrator. 

The Ships book seems to have registration problems with the illustrations on many pages, so their overall impact is somewhat diminished. There are no such problems in Cars, but Cars seems to have a lower density of pictures, and they don't appear to be as detailed and numerous when it comes to the construction sections.

Even by the publication standards of 1969, both books seem like throwbacks to hobby books of the pre-1950s when drawings were the primary way of illustrating many of these sorts of mid-range guides, and photographs were sparingly used, if at all. By the time we get to the 1960s we're seeing hobby books with black and white photos on nearly every page, some pages with several photos. Louis Hertz's The Complete Book of Raceways and Roadways from 1964, and Paul Plecan's Model Car Handbook from 1965 are good examples of high end, photograph dense, hobby publishing of the time. I assume the publisher of Ships and Cars, Meredith Press, had an eye on keeping production and licensing costs low.

Although the illustrations in both Ships and Cars are excellent, the impression I got was that Nordner's heart wasn't in Cars as it was in Ships, and I'd say Cars isn't as good as Ships. 

Not as good?

If one were to test the books' titles by trying to build a model car or ship from the contents, I think one could build a ship model using Ships as a guide, but I don't think a model car could be built from Cars. I think Cars is misnamed. Although it does discuss things like static models, and various types of powered models, it's really an introduction to the slot car hobby. The paragraphs and illustrations on model car construction are somewhat perfunctory, unlike Ships were there are lots of detailed illustrations. I speculate that Cars was written to try and capture some piece of the slot car hobby market, which unfortunately was in decline by 1969.

Did I figure out why young me was so entranced by How to Build Model Cars? No. I suspect I was just enthralled by the existence of a book purporting to explain how to build model cars and studied the pages with religious fervour in an attempt to puzzle out whatever secrets were in its pages.