R. SCHNEIDER’S THIS & THAT
MARCH 2015

Winter has finally arrived in the St Louis area. Up until now we have had only a couple of inches of snow all winter and average temperatures have been above normal. Last night we had 8 inches of snow and I finally had to dust off the snow shovel. I always enjoy the first snow of the season so this one is OK It’s only 2 ½ weeks until Spring so this snow will do it for me!
My daughters have been resorting my stock books. Many of my stock books were started over 20 years ago and are vastly overstuffed with stamps. After resorting some of the 64 page stock books end up being three 64 page books but a whole lot better organized. The process is also unearthing lots of better items buried within the old stock books.
This month we have updated our Germany Part D price list. We finally have all Germany proper issues included in lists A through D. Next month we will update our Germany Soviet Zone price list which is long over due for revision. We have acquired a couple of really nice collections making a new list worth while. We are trying to update our Liechtenstein price list also as the current list is a couple of years old. We will get it done for either April or no later than May.

Michel Catalogs

On April 10th Michel will release the 2015 Michel Germany Specialized catalogs – Volume 1 and 2 and on 5 June will issue the 2015 Austria Specialized catalog.

Currency Conversion Rate

The favorable dollar/Euro conversion rate may make it the right time for you replace your old catalogs. You can pre-order the catalogs from Werner Zielniewicz at http://www.wernerzielnet.com. He will get the catalogs to you as soon as they are released!

Translating To/ From German

We get asked frequently what is available to translate German catalogs and philatelic articles in German. Many non-German speaking collectors want to use the more definitive Michel catalogs but are hesitant to do so because they are printed in German. German catalogs are really easy to use because Michel organizes the catalogs extremely logically, provides pictures of every issue and provides all the information necessary to differentiate similar appearing issues.
For those relatively new to German catalogs a most useful reference is the German Philatelic Society’s German/English Philatelic Dictionary. The latest edition is 2005. This dictionary contains just about any philatelic term and abbreviation you will ever run across in a Michel catalog. The dictionaries are available from the Germany Philatelic Society for $25.
For reading and writing letters and philatelic articles I used to use some rather expensive translating business software. The software was capable of translating my letters from English to German at about a grade school level.
Fortunately online software translators have vastly improved in quality in recent years and translate far better than the business software I paid dearly for.
The two that I use most often are
http://babelfish.yahoo.com and http://translate.google.com. I find the yahoo site provides a slightly better German/ English translation.
When all else fails I resort to my German/English dictionary.
Currency Conversion Rate
The Euro has gone up since last year. The current exchange rate now is 1 Euro equals $1.14 US. This exchange rate is most favorable for US buyers in many years!