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The Rail Philatelist November 2000 Newsletter |
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The Rail Philatelist November 2000 Newsletter |
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The
Rail Philatelist
Volume 5 ............... PRICE $1.00 (10 ISSUES FOR $8.00)................Number 10 November 1, 2000
Dear Fellow Rail Philatelist:
RED DOT: It is time once again to prune the mailing list. If
your mailing label has a dreaded red dot, that means I haven't heard from you in
10 months. This will be your last newsletter/pricelists unless I receive an
order or a subscription (see masthead). I can't let the paying customers
subsidize you.
WHAT
HAPPENED TO TURKMENISTAN?: When I included the photo of Turkmenistan #54 last
month, I thought there were several Turkmenistan offerings in the "T list". Much
to my consternation, there weren't any! I checked my database and the entries
were there as they should be including a "T" in the column which selects them
for inclusion in the monthly lists. Took me awhile to discover that instead of a
"T", I had a "T " - a T space! The invisible space had prevented their selection
for the list. Concerned, I checked the rest of the alphabet and found 93 similar
problems thanks to the "FIND/CHANGE" feature. I don't know what they all were
but that's almost one and a half pages of material I thought I was offering that
didn't make the lists, 35 in the "B list" alone! They will be in upcoming lists
- the missing Turkmenistan items are at the end of the
"V-Z"list.
SHOWS:
Remember that old song lyric "There's no business like show business"? Well,
these days there is "no business at shows"! Particularly stamp shows. Even
Filatelic Fiesta in Santa Clara, one of my best shows in past years, wasn't
worthwhile this year. The major retail chains like to measure their progress by
the growth in "same store sales". Well, my "same show" sales show considerable
negative progress as the following table indicates:
|
SHOW |
LOCATION |
2000 SALES/97-99
AVE.* |
CHANGE |
|
Denver
GATS |
Stockyard
Complex, Denver, CO |
140% |
+40% |
|
Hostler's
RR Festival |
Ogden
Union Station, Ogden, UT |
89% |
-11% |
|
NMRA
Convention |
San
Jose, CA 00, St.Paul, MN 99, |
|
|
|
|
Kansas
City, MO 98, Madison, WI 97 |
64% |
-36% |
|
Las
Vegas GATS |
Cashmen
Center (97, 98 & 00) |
56% |
-44% |
|
APS
STAMPSHOW |
Providence,RI
00,Cleveland, OH 99, |
|
|
|
|
Santa
Clara, CA 98, Milwaukee, WI 97 |
60% |
-40% |
|
FILATELIC
FIESTA |
Santa
Clara Convention Ctr.(97,99 &00) |
56% |
-44% |
|
AVERAGE
SALES PER SHOW |
66% |
-34% |
|
*A
three year average was used to mimimize the effects of one good or bad
year.
And
this table excludes my three biggest losers (WSE2000, ATA Buffalo and WESTPEX)
because I didn't do comparable shows the preceeding three years. (And probably
shouldn't ever again! I'll give WESTPEX one more try but I have no interest in
doing the ATA show in Mesa, AZ in June). Actually, I was surprised when I
compiled these numbers because I didn't think the train shows had held up as
well as they did (Denver was a one big sale anomaly.). This partially validates
my weak moment decision to sign up for seven Great American Train Shows (GATS)
rather than the five I signed for last year (they offered a FREE show if you do
two more in 2001 than you did in 2000 - I think that indicates they are having a
hard time getting dealers!). Stamp shows are definitely on the decline. At
FILATELIC FIESTA, I talked with Marshall Burde, who with his wife Maureen, run
the show for the San Jose Stamp Club and also promote shows in California as
Burde Enterprises. They are dropping their one day shows because they are having
a hard time getting dealers. My Mother-in -law clipped an article from the DAYTON DAILY NEWS reporting that
poor attendance at AIRPEX, an APS "Champion of Champions" show for many years,
has forced the Dayton Club to consider holding the show in alternate years (that
will really kill it in my opinion). They used to have 30 dealers and now are
having a hard time getting 15-20. My own club in Colorado Springs can't find
enough dealers for SOCOPEX coming up in two weeks (I've never done well there
even when I ran it, so I don't do it anymore). Pat Dowling, dba 20th Century
Classics, is having increasing problems finding dealers for the shows he runs in
Denver - he has already cut out the shows he ran in COS, KC and Santa Fe, NM.
What does all this mean? I obviously don't know, but I think the surfiet of
stamp shows the past few years will become a dearth as the one day and weaker
two day shows disappear. Many of the three day shows will (or should)cut back to
two. The LINNS STAMP NEWS
and STAMP COLLECTOR show listings may not even be one
page in a couple years, let alone the two they take up now. Why the decline?
Rising costs (WESTPEX is increasing fees over15% for 2001) and declining sales
cause dealers to drop out. This starts a death spiral - fewer dealers attract
fewer customers since there is going to be less material for them to chose from.
I'll use myself as an example: I usually attend the monthly stamp bourse in
Denver if I can but I'm not going this month because instead of the usual ten
dealers there will be only four (conflicting shows in North Platte, NE and
Cheyenne, WY siphoned off some regulars) and I can probably see them at SOCOPEX
in two weeks (although there will be only seven dealers there instead of the
usual 16!). If all the collectors who usually show up for the Denver bourse do,
the four dealers should do pretty well since the money spent won't be cut in as
many slices. But if too many collectors take my approach, the couple hundred
dollars I usually spend and whatever they usually spend, won't be spent. What is
worse, many collectors will show up and find that the four dealers there don't
have what they are looking for - with ten, they might have found something. Now
those collectors leave disappointed, vowing not to waste their time on stamp
shows, so attendance at the next show declines even if all ten dealers
participate. Attendance declines, sales decline, dealers drop out,... That's the
death spiral. Collectors and dealers are both turning to mail order (good for
me) and especially eBay (I've got to get busy there) since those forums are a
better fit for the philatelic persona than shows are anyway. Most of the dealers
I talk with are cutting back their show schedules as I have and spending time
putting things on eBay (which I plan to do also). What is your take on all
this?
MORE
ON SHOWS: It may not be direct fall-out from the Post Office's disastrous WORLD
STAMP EXPO 2000 in Anaheim, but the Postal Service has cut it's stamp show
budget by about 70%. A LINN'S STAMP
NEWS Oct. 16, 2000 front
page headline read "Budget cuts bring tables, chairs back to mega-event,
Stampshow". Instead of supporting four major shows each year, the Anaheim
mega-event has been eliminated and the APS Stampshow and two New York mega-events will have severely
reduced budgets starting with the Nov. 9 -12, 2000 show. This prompted the
American Stamp Dealers Assn., which manages the mega-events, to announce that
conventional tables and chairs will be used rather than the much-panned
plexiglass counters. The floor plan was also consolidated with exhibit frames
and the dealer bourse on the same floor. Postal Service support for youth areas
has been eliminated and the Postal Service area will be staffed at 60% of former
levels. While ASDA has tried to put a positive spin on the changes, a budget
reduction from $1.5 million for four shows to less than $500,000 for three shows
has major impacts which probably won't be evident until after the November mega,
or maybe the March event. (I wonder why STAMP COLLECTOR didn't even mention the subject in their
Oct. 23, 2000 "Special New York Mega-event Issue".)
TRAIN
REPORT: No travel this month but, like in everything else, I'm about a month
behind in my train reports. The trip home from Providence was almost trainless
most of the way - saw the tailends of a couple autoracks in Ohio, crossed over a
major yard in Chicago but traffic kept me from rubber-necking, then saw one BNSF
manifest near Princeton, IL. My drive across Nebraska made up for the previous
lean 1400 miles however. In addition to a clogged BNSF yard at Lincoln with
eight trains trying to get through, I passed four more coal trains on the way to
Grand Island. There I followed the UP main west on US 30. Five trains on the way to Gibbon
where the Kansas City line joins the three track main, another 15 from there to
North Platte. Spent an hour in North Platte watching three trains leave the EB ready tracks,
a rail grinding train, crawl thru, a pair of geeps working the "van yard" as UP
calls it, and another four run-through coal trains and manifests. After a slow
drive past the locomotive repair shops where 100 or more locos are usually in
evidence, I got stopped at the west end yard throat as two trains headed west
and one came EB (I'm probably one of the few who don't mind getting stopped at a
RR crossing!). All in all, I saw 16 trains from North Platte to Big Spring, five
of the last six EB being the first
stackpacks I saw all day (starting about 4 PM Tuesday). That got me wondering if
the intermodal yards in Chicago and LA shut down on the weekends since I assumed
these were the vanguard, having left LA Monday morning while no WB from Chicago
would have caught up with me yet. Anyone know if the intermodal yards work 24/7
or just a five day week? On my trip to St. Louis for the Regency Auction, there
wasn't much happening on the old Kansas Pacific, just a powerless coal train
sitting near Wild Horse, CO and an EB struggling up a hill near Oakley, KS.
Since it was dark by the time I got to Kansas City, I almost didn't stop at
Santa Fe Junction. I'm glad I did - among the eight trains I saw there in less
than an hour was AMTRAK's "Ann Rutledge". After her 9:10 PM arrival at the KC
station, she comes west empty on the highline where I saw her, a GE Dash 8-40B,
two coaches and a cafe/coach. Then she backs into the south leg of the wye out
of my field of view, and proceeds back to the station, turned and ready for her
7:35 AM departure to St. Louis (If I'd known then what I know now I could have
ridden her from KC to St. Louis and back!). I didn't have time to visit the
railroad museum in St. Louis this trip but it is certainly worth doing if you
have the time. I also got to see
the Ringling Bros. circus train on the siding near the Kemper Arena coming and
going. My only railroading in St. Louis was a couple glimpses of the beautiful,
stone station in Kirkwood (still used by AMTRAK) and the viewing (and purchase)
of a bunch of train stamps.
THE
STAMP HOBBY...: Thanks again to Michael Laurence, Editor/publisher of LINN'S STAMP NEWS for this final insight from his
APS Tiffany Dinner speech:
10.
The stamp hobby creates lasting friendships. I look around this room and I see a
number of people whom I call friends, even close friends. A huge number of my
friends (and many of the most interesting) have come my way through stamp
collecting. This was true before I ever got into stamps professionally (if you
can call stamp journalism a profession). ED: This may actually be the best
benefit of all. I know I treasure the many friends I've made in the stamp
hobby.
STAMP
OF THE MONTH: Reading David D. Perata's THOSE PULLMAN BLUES An Oral History of
the African American Railroad Attendant.led me to select US #2402 Asa
Phillip Randolph. While he was never a Pullman porter himself, he headed
theBrotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters fron its inception in 1925 until he
retired in 1968, the same year the Pullman Company closed its doors. The book
gives some interesting insights on the heyday of "name train"
travel.
RAIL
THOUGHT OF THE MONTH: "Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes
through stations. ...whatever we have been, in some sort we still are." C.S.
Lewis, ALLEGORY OF LOVE (ED: somewhat deeper than my normal
thoughts)
RAIL
FACTS AND FEATS: The narrowest gauge on which public services are operated is
the 101/4 in. Wells Harbour (0.7 mi.) and the Wells - Walsingham Railways (4
mi.) in Norfolk, England.
AL
PETERSON
JOIN THE CASEY JONES
RAILROAD UNIT OF THE AMERICAN TOPICAL ASSOCIATION
Dues $8.00. Contact Oliver
Atchison, PO Box 31631, San Francisco, CA 94131
.
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