ESSENTIAL REFERENCES

INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE

To improve knowledge of Thai Buddhist amulets and to improve the knowledge of identifying them, one will inevitably need to know it's background information and the amulets itself or photographs for comparision and reference. One can obtain these information and photographs through books and magazines featuring the subject of Thai Buddhist amulets collection. There are many books in Thai language and sometimes in English, covering the subject, other than information about monks, temples and their amulets, books provide a lot of good photographs for references. Some of these sources worth reading are as follows:

Dictionary Of Buddha's Small Image Book 1 to Book 5

This series of books do not have much text, however they contains collections of photographs of competition pieces, photographs of prize winning Thai Buddhist amulets are catalogued into a book after a Thai amulet competition. From these books one can know what are the collector's pieces and recognise them, the books covers statues images from different periods of Thailand, ancient votive images, to collector's pieces of Thai Buddhist amulets from recent decades. From these series of books one will get a general idea of what are the popular pieces and what amulets are worth collecting. Dictionary of Buddha's Small Image Book 1 to Book 5 provides very good reference for the collector.

Books About Individual Monks And Their Amulets

Books on amulet of individual monks, information about the monk, information about his amulets, provide information about the biography of the particular monk, and information about the batches of amulets created by him, such as the year made, number of pieces created, the different moulds used which may also covers remade pieces, etc. These books often contains clear, large size photographs for reference. They may also provide information on popular pieces, details of the material used, and details of the consecration ceremonies. These books are very good reference which features on only one particular monk and his amulets, however they often covers all the amulets of a particular monk thoroughtly. They may be published by the temple committee of the monk, or by the companies of amulet magazines, whereby the writers are usually collectors whom specialise on the amulets of a particular monk.

Books About A Particular Type Of Amulets

Also on the market, there are books written on information and tips regarding a particular type of amulets, such as a book focusing on Rian/medal amulets, or a book focusing on Phra Pidta, etc. These books will often covers information and tips regarding the particular type of amulets covering the most popular pieces from old periods to popular pieces of recent decades. These books often have good photographs and background information, and oftenly the authors will provide pointers in identifying these amulets. These books are very valuable aid if a collector is interested in a particular type of amulets.

Magazines

There are large number of different magazines on the subject of collecting Thai Buddhist amulets. Most magazines features on popular collector's pieces, some features on new created amulets of current monks and also the latest amulets. There are also articles about the popular amulets or about the popular monks written by the editors of the magazines, these articles usually provides information and sometimes rumours. And of course, these magazines provides photographs for reference and oftenly, these magazines even also feature articles with photographs providing pointers on how to identify a particular authentic amulet, guiding the collector to look out for certain identify points of an amulet. And all of these magazines contains lots of commercial advertisments by Thai amulet dealers and shops, and from these magazines one will know what are the general prices of the amulets in the Thai amulet market. There are oftenly even posters of amulets and monks. On other words, these magazines are like car or fashion magazines.

ESSENTIAL TOOLS

Examining amulets needs a little tools; but a 10X magnifying glass helps a lot and a good source of light. It is best to examine amulets under a table lamp providing white light. Imitation pieces of various different qualities are also valuable, as they provide good references to the collector for comparision. If you do not read Thai language, at least learn to read Thai numbers, it's not hard to learn the numbers 0 - 9, but it will help the collector a lot in many areas.