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The Books Of C B Colby.


patches
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Any of you old timers remember these? Books by the prolific American author C B Colby, he did books on EVERYTHING, for our purposes, he has alot of books relating to the Military of his day, the 50s-60s, these books are small in pages, but they are chalked full of period photos, and are good for reference to a degree, especially in reguards to Uniforms, Insignia, Weapons and Gear.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.B._Colby

 

 

 

A Sampling of his stuff. Most are his, there's some other stuff shown, but you know how these goolge image pages are. All these are still avaiable to buy, normally of course on Amazon, I picked up a load over the past three years or so.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cb+colby&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=75t8UfjJIZPh0AHFnoB4&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=632#tbm=isch&sa=1&q=cb+colby+books&oq=cb+colby+books&gs_l=img.3..0.338126.339568.0.340289.6.2.0.4.4.0.510.510.5-1.1.0...0.0...1c.1.11.img.GUpqRy2u4MM&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45645796,d.dmQ&fp=c24c346b03d19a89&biw=1280&bih=632

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  • 1 month later...

Agreed! I remember these books from my youth and checking them out from the school library. What great memories, and probably started my fascination with military history.

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hbtcoveralls

god yes I remember them they were some of my favorite books in the Library. Covered all kind of interesting subjects from WWII weapons and vehicles to Civil war weapons. Still some of my favorite memories

Tom Bowers

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indeed guys, these were always Favorites, true they were essentialy for young people, but they were and are a fantastic source of reference, especialy with many of the photos not being seen in anymore publications to date. Colby was alright, he was a member as we see of the Civilian Air Patrol for years.

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Cobrahistorian

I just came across a few here in our museum's library a few weeks ago. Man that brought back some memories!

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I loved those books! I always went to that shelf first at the library to see if there was anything new.

 

I recently picked up a copy of "Fighting Gear of World War II - Equipment and Weapons of the American G.I." I still love it!

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There are a ton of very interesting photos in these books worthy of scanning and posting here on the forum, I would love to do some but I think my friend who does scans for me would kill me :lol: He's already working on my latest batch of junk to post here.

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Can't forget the "Ballantine Illustrated History of World War II" books. They sold those at our elementary school book fairs in the 60s. Full of photos and reference material. Some really quality authors too. The parents didn't mind as I was reading all the time. I still will refer to them now and then as I have quite a number of them from back then.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=Ballantine+Illustrated+History+of+World+War+II&client=firefox-a&hs=kKW&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=dqqyUZTiM8qrqQGG84CwAw&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1680&bih=889

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The C.B. Colby Fighting Gear book - along with episodes of Combat and Rat Patrol - and the full color G.I. Joe fold out "catalogue" - were my primers for all things WWII.

 

That C.B. Colby book was on my library book check-out list every week of elementary school in the late 60s, and early 70s.

 

I transport myself back to a time - before smart phones and smart forums give instant access to just about any image of WWII that I can dream of - to recall the marvel of opening that book and discovering page after page of "actual Army pictures". It was like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket to all things militaria.

 

I have to admit: many years later, I appropriated one of his captions as my own - G.I Business Suit. I wrote it into a standup for Lee Ermey (the Gunny) when I was making Mail Call. Just a small tip of the hat to Colby and his thin little book that had such a huge impact on me and perhaps so many others here.

 

Somebody should make an app for those books.

 

Nowadays, when the more cynical, grown-up version of me kicks in, I think about the mint he must have made by taking a few dozen public domain Signal Corps photos, writing a paragraph for each one, and then selling it to every school in every town in this country.

 

Makes me like the guy even more.

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The C.B. Colby Fighting Gear book - along with episodes of Combat and Rat Patrol - and the full color G.I. Joe fold out "catalogue" - were my primers for all things WWII.

 

That C.B. Colby book was on my library book check-out list every week of elementary school in the late 60s, and early 70s.

 

I transport myself back to a time - before smart phones and smart forums give instant access to just about any image of WWII that I can dream of - to recall the marvel of opening that book and discovering page after page of "actual Army pictures". It was like a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket to all things militaria.

 

I have to admit: many years later, I appropriated one of his captions as my own - G.I Business Suit. I wrote it into a standup for Lee Ermey (the Gunny) when I was making Mail Call. Just a small tip of the hat to Colby and his thin little book that had such a huge impact on me and perhaps so many others here.

 

Somebody should make an app for those books.

 

Nowadays, when the more cynical, grown-up version of me kicks in, I think about the mint he must have made by taking a few dozen public domain Signal Corps photos, writing a paragraph for each one, and then selling it to every school in every town in this country.

 

Makes me like the guy even more.

Yes indeed, but from what I found after getting about a dozen of his military related books, is a great many photos were never reprinted again and can be seen only in these books by Colby.

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  • 2 months later...
northcoastaero

I remember these books in our grade school libraries also. You are correct about the informative photos. Thank-you for the memories.

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Well now that my latest grouping of photos from books and magazines, as well as a big group of my personel photos from when I was in the Service back in 80-82 are done now (I still need to post alot more of my service fotos, been dragging my a-s-s on that :lol: ) and have been for awhile now, me thinks the next project will be getting my friend to scan a wide selection of photos from Mr Colby's book that I have, and I have quite a few. So stay tuned, I have to talk to him, as to his avaiablity, he lives right across the street so it's not a biggie, and I will post the photos in the Photograph Forum naturally rather than here in this forum, which is reserved for talks on books not posting of photos.

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Got the Colby photos, my friend just has to get around to resizing the scans. I think I will post these few in the approriate Forums, as there are related photos that will add to a particular forum. I picked the most unique ones, there are loads of fotos in these books that haven't seen the pages of a book since they first apppeared in his books, or that matter, being posted online, but you know, I can have scanned dozens upon dozens upon dozens of photos, my friend would want to Hang Me By My Balls from Big Ben if I tried to make him do that :lol:

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thanks for starting this thread about the books

of CB Colby. I could recall reading these books

years ago but forgot who wrote them. Looking forward

to seeing some of the images from these books

when you get the time.

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