I thought this was going to be an easy blog, but it's not! First off, I love these books:

They're books produced in Germany, celebrating the 1932 Summer Games, held in Los Angeles, USA, and the 1936 Winter Games, held in Berlin, Germany. They're each over 100 pages, filled with intricate details about results from both games. I really don't know as much as I would like to about them. But they're distinct in at least two aspects: In '32, the games were in LA; in '36, they were in Germany, under a new ruling party!

Here's the opening page of the '32 Olympics Book...

His name was Paul von Hindenburg, a military and political icon who was brought back to power, mostly as a figurehead.

In the 1936 Olympic Book, this was the opening page:

EDIT! At the request of a friend, I've removed the

photo of this page. No problem!

By 1936, Germany had a new ruling party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, lead by Adolf Hitler That's the guy in the inset photo. At that time, he was kind of like a rock star amongst many people. (NOTE! That last statement has generated some controversy amongst some of my friends. But I'm not taking it out or rephrasing it, because I don't think you should delete or edit blogs midstream. It changes the relevance of what people say in the comments section!) I'm not going to try to interpret history. I'm not qualified.

But I love these books! They have fantastic black and white photography...

And many, many, "colorized" photos. Best way to describe them!

And they're all displayed with an abundance of details and relevant sports stats..

Now for The Rest of the Story, Part One: Almost all of these photos are hand pasted in place! You might can tell from these pics, not sure. I thought they were part of the production process. But no, per the usual, I'm wrong! Someone told me they were "Cigarette Books." Then I noticed this on the credits page:

Seems that a cigarette company made these books, with blank spots for the photos! You had to buy the cigarette packs in order to get the photos to fill the book up! How deliciously devious! :) That's all I know about it to this day. I've tried to research more about these books, but I fall into an historical google mindtrap that I cannot escape!

Oh, Rest of the Story, Part Two: Reason I really love these books... I won them from my older bro in a game of billiards! :)

Thank you for your time. :)

TG