We had a long dry period in our area which totally ruined the fall foliage – leaves went from green to brown to the ground. Otherwise our weather has been exceptionally nice this fall with sunny days and mild temperatures.
October was one of those months in which we worked very hard to stay in place. We made little progress in any of our projects. Part of the problem is that I am still not at 100% energy wise and just haven’t gotten things done as well as usual. Fortunately Jill has caught on to our business exceptionally quickly and is taking over a lot of my work.
This month we updated our Austria Ganzsachen list – mainly because we do not have a great many changes to our last list and the updating was easy. We are working on several other lists as well as adding a large number of items with images to our web site.
Christmas Gift Certificates
Now is the time to let your family know what you want for Christmas! Some of my customers’ best stamps come to them at Christmas. We always get quite a few orders from family members for Christmas presents – almost always because the collector thought to provide want lists for family members! If you are tired of sweaters and ties for Christmas you might try distributing Christmas want lists for stamps
When in doubt about what stamps to ask for let your relatives know that they can give you a gift certificate for stamps from us. We will provide certificates in any amount. (We add an extra 10% to the value of every gift purchase – e.g. a 50 dollar gift is really a $55 gift certificate.)
Our Mailing Lists
We are working on configuring our printed price lists in formats which can be stored on our web site and accessed directly by our customers on line. Unfortunately it is a lot harder to do than I expected. The trick is to format the on line version in a manner which can be printed by the customer – without our having to retype existing lists.
Periodically we update our mailing lists to remove inactive customers. If you have not bought from us within the past 12 months but wish to continue to receive our monthly price lists, please let us know and we will keep you on our mailing list.
If you have a computer but have not visited our web site, you should give it a look. We have many thousands of items listed and also have hundreds of pictures of the more expensive items. You can order directly on line. As we have price lists for 17 different collecting areas, and many of our customers collect only some of these areas, we have organized our mailing lists into the following categories:
- All – Lists for those who collect all areas we stock,
- Austria – Lists for Austria and related areas.
- Gal – Lists for Germany and all related areas – e.g. states, colonies and occupations.
- Germany – Lists for Germany proper, Soviet Zone and DDR only.
- GA – Lists for all German areas except Germany itself.
- GS – German states only.
- GC – German offices and colonies only.
- Liechtenstein
- Luxembourg
If you aren’t getting a category of lists that you want – just let us know!
AUSPS
We are ending the 14th full year of the Austria stamp club. If you are a collector of Austrian stamps and covers you should consider joining our group. We publish a quarterly bulletin in color and hold two auctions a year. Our next auction will be included with the January bulletin.
Dues are only $16 a year for our US members and $23 a year for overseas members. You can join by sending us your check now. Dues received from now through December will cover 2014 membership.
If you would like to see one of our club bulletins to help you decide , we will send you one.
Stamps We Need
We are frequently asked if we buy stamps – really. After 40 years stamp dealing, we do have a sizable stock, but we are always in need of some stamps. We can always use the really scarce singles and sets – items cataloging $200 and up.
- Here are some of the areas that we most need including even the less rare items-
- Austria local issues – all
- WWII German occupations – all except Bohemia and the General Government.
- German private post stamps – all
- German colonies – all
- Post WWII local issues – all
- German states – mint issues for all areas.
- German setenants never hinged – Particularly issues from 1920 -1935 and early Berlin issues.