Again in 2025 December was our best sales month. Traditionally December is our slowest month and we get a lot of projects done. .The last three years have been major exceptions. I think the unusually nasty weather we have had throughout the country in recent years may have kept collectors inside and working with their stamps. Our northern Texas weather has been increasingly milder in recent years. The major exception is we lead the nation hail storms. Everyone I know has replaced their roof at lest once in the past 10 years.

We did manage to complete our up date of our web site for Austria stamps and covers. We added a lot of items and also revised our prices to track with market changes. For Austria that meant that there were many prices decreases.

We have completed our year sets for 2025 only for Germany as most European countries have suspended shipping of new postal issues to the United States because of uncertainty of how US tariffs will affect shipments.
We expect these uncertainties to be clarified in the next months and that we acquire the recent issues. We will keep customers advised of the postal service.

European auction houses are still shipping to the US although most of their shipments are being passes through our customs and being taxed. Knowledgeable sources are expecting the US to revert back to our government’s policy to exempt collectible stamps from taxation. When this happens postal services should go back their policies and mail service will resume as it has been.

NEW ISSUE SERVICE

We have now mailed German 2025 new issues. We expect to complete the Austria issues in January. We are unsure when we will complete Liechtenstein and Luxembourg as both countries have suspended postal service have to the US.

If you would like to start a new issue service, we can supply anything that the posts of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein or Luxembourg issue. We tailor our new issue mailings to the needs of each customer. Most customers collect all of the issues listed by Scott catalogs as major catalog numbers as these will be the stamps that spaces are provided for in American made albums. Some of our customers use European albums and we can tailor our mailings to include issues that will appear in these albums too.

If you want to sign up for new issues, all you have to do is let us know which issues you want and we will send on approval via quarterly shipments. (We can also wait until of the end of each issuing year and send you new issues in one big batch. The yearly shipments have become very popular as you can not put the stamps on anyone’s album pages for at least several months into the next year). No deposit is required. (We prefer though that you give us a MC/Visa/American Express account number and then we charge the issues as we ship them – it really simplifies our book keeping.)

Dr Ferchenbauer’s Austria Handbook

We continue to be the US supplier of the 2008 Ferchenbauer edition which exists in 4 hardbound volumes and weighs 18 pounds. (That’s 3 times the weight of the 2000 edition.) There are about 2800 pages total – each page in color with images that are so true in quality that they can be reliably used by collectors to verify their own varieties. Essentially the catalogs list and describe all philatelic items created from 1850 through 1918 – stamps, covers and postal stationery. Prices are given for all items.

The 2008 catalog is expected to be the last edition of the handbook. We are the sole US distributor for this handbook/catalog set. We no longer have complete sets on hand but can get a set mailed directly to you from Austria delivered for is $400.00.

(To date the catalogs have not been subject to taxation but given the uncertainty of current US Custom policies it is possible that Customs may decide tax them)

OUR PRICE LISTS

We still maintain printed price lists but publish them much less frequently. We spend much more effort keeping our web site listings up to date because that’s where most are of customers are now.

If you would like our printed lists just let us know and we will send them as issued. We have multiple lists for each of the 4 countries we stock. Be such to let us know your specific collecting interests and we make sure you get the price lists of interest to you.

R Schneider Stamps
PO Box 978
Iowa Park TX 76367
Office 618 975 2099
FAX 940 213 3596

email RSchneiderStamps@gmail.com

web site
www.RSchneiderstamps.com