Book on Police Unit Markings?

[Don M]

This is a survey. As many of you know, I have developed a database of over 1,000 unit marks from German police forces from the period 1900 to about 1936. To date, I have researched and published articles on the unit markings of Prussian police (Berlin Schupo, Landj�¤gerei, detective forces and Police Schools) and am currently researching and writing articles for Auto Mag on the Prussian Schupo outside Berlin. In the following months, I plan to address at least: Saxon police, Thuringian police, Bavarian police, police of the Hanseatic League Cities, Customs and Finance police and others as the data permits. I continue to accumulate data and, with each new topic, I invariably learn something that makes me want to update the information in previous articles.

Rather than enter what may be a never-ending cycle of revisions after completing the initial tranche of articles, I am thinking of updating the information from these articles and compiling it into a hopefully coherent book. My ideas about the book are still quite vague but I would want it to have two sections: a look-up table that would permit rapid identification of a mark and a section providing more history, background and data, similar to the articles I have been writing. The table could be used by someone who just wants to know what a mark means and the rest would be for the â??interested student.â?� A final chapter on unidentified marks will allow me to list everything from my database somewhere in the book. The working title is: â??German Police Unit Markings â?? 1900 to 1936.â?�

I know nothing about publishing a book and donâ??t know whether I will have the energy or interest once I have completed my agenda of articles and learn how much more work I would have to do. The most important thing I want to establish now is whether there would be any significant interest in such a book. If this produces a collective yawn, I wonâ??t waste any more time thinking about it.

I will very much appreciate the opinions of forum members.