October weather was pretty summer like except that daily highs decreased from the 100’s to the low to mid 90’s The first signs of fall weather arrive this week with dramatic temperature drops to 60’s and 70’s. We also just got a few inches of badly needed rain.

I planted a second vegetable garden in early August but had to replant in late August because of the consistently high temperatures. Fortunately when temperatures dropped to the low 90’s the second plantings grew rapidly and some of my first plantings revived and started to produce.

I have great respect for farmers now that I have taken up growing plants as a hobby. I avoid tracking how much it costs me to produce a crop of vegetables!

Business has been slow again during September and October this year so I have been going through past acquisitions checking for varieties as well as sorting through some of my bulging stock books. I really love doing this but usually don’t have the time. So far this fall I have found a lot of varieties that will interest more advanced collectors. Some of them should never have been overlooked as they are obvious and valuable! This month we have updated the German inflation era listings on our web site which include many of the recently found varieties. We also updated on special page.

We will be completing our new issue service for 2023 soon. We continue having great difficulty acquiring all new issues of German and Austria as the quality of their postal service continues to decline. Neither country provide a wide variety of stamp issues to local post offices. It is very very difficult to find postally used commemoratives from either country because most citizens can not buy them for postage. For that reason our listing of recently issued used stamps will mainly be cancelled to order stamps. Hopefully we will have 2023 year sets on hand by years end. We will list them in our year set section of our web site as soon as we have them ready.

Our Mailing Lists

Periodically we update our mailing list to remove inactive customers. If you have not bought from us from our price lists within the past 12 months but wish to continue to receive our price lists, please let us know and we will keep you on our mailing list. The vast majority of our customers now order from our web site or send us want lists. By mail price lists are becoming rare birds now. We still maintain price lists but up date them far less often. We are moving towards listing more varieties on our web site than on our printed lists – mainly because the varieties are often one or two of a kind and sell quickly. We can keep our web site listings up to date much easier than our printed lists. We add and delete items on our web site as we acquire and sell them.

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 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 23rd 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 still only $17 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 2024 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 almost 50 years of 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-

WWII German occupations – all except Bohemia and the General Government.

German private post stamps – all

German offices and colonies – all mint

Post WWII local issues- both for Austria and Germany.

Michel listed Soviet Zone issues – specially the varieties.

German states – mint issues for all areas.

Of course we also buy complete collections. When it becomes time for you to sell your collection please remember us.