Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
My year-end report from the trenches....
For those few of you that do not know, I manage a stamp shop in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We are a bricks and mortar shop, open five days per week (Tues. to Sat.) There are only ten such shops in Canada, that we know of. I am also the principle auctioneer of Sparks Auction, in Ottawa, as well.
End-of-Year Report
------------------
1. Sales remain good. The hobby is strong!
2. People still collect stamps. New people are discovering this wonderful hobby.
3. The majority of the 20 - 30 year old collectors I have come to the shop are women.
4. Few people collect entire countries, they collect sections, like GB pre-decimal Elizabeth II, or specialise in a set or two like Canadian Admirals, French Marianne (one of the series), etc.
5. Topical collecting is growing. These folks are seriously collecting and studying.
6. Overall, the collectors in the shop are well informed and enjoying their hobby.
7. Newfoundland, BNA, and pre-1920 Canada OF GOOD QUALITY remain strong and elusive.
8. There is lots of material coming to the market, as the folks who were collecting from the 1950s to the 1990s are no longer with us.
9. Postcards and other ephemera are making their way into the hobby. Some folks are also collecting coins and currency of their chosen stamp area as well.
10. Postal history is not as big as it looks. The vast majority of collectors are collecting stamps; though there is increased interest in postal history.
11. Much has moved to the internet. That is a good thing.
12. Rejoice... the hobby is strong and people still do mail things, though not as much.
Merry Christmas... and all the best for 2017 when Canadians celebrate our sesquicentenary!
David Giles
Ottawa, Canada
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Thanks for the report sir.
A very Merry Christmas to you and yours.
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Sales remain good. The hobby is strong!
Dave, I think it's kinda like Global Warming ... it depends where you live.
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Merry Christmas Dave. Thanks for the report.
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Great positive report!
Thanks and Merry Christmas Dave 
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Thank you for taking the time to create that report! Much appreciated!! 
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Good news!
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Thank you for the update, Mannderineinemgrabenarbeitet (trenchman)!
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Very encouraging end of the year update. Thanks!
And Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah to all.
Eric (Trencherman)
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David, Thanks for your encouraging report. It is also glad to see that business is doing good for you. Hopefully brick and mortar stamp shops will make a comeback.
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Another observation..... not related directly to stamp collecting, but hobbies in general...
In social situations, I meet people at parties, etc. and am asked what I do. When they hear I work for a stamp dealer, the usual responses I get are:
"People still collect stamps?"
"How can you make a living doing that?"
"Nobody has hobbies anymore."
My conclusion? Go to a shopping mall. It is filled with people sitting there, doing nothing constructive. Those are the nobodies that say no-one: collects stamps, or coins, or matchbooks; does macrame, sewing, knitting, etc.
I went to a shop that sells supplies for knitting and sewing, there were 30+ men and women at the back sewing, quilting, and knitting. I went to a railway model club, with a friend a few years ago... over ninety people there, sharing the enthusiasm of that hobby. The Ottawa Coin Club has over 75 active members! The list goes on.
Don't waste your time, and do not listen to the nobodies. The people doing hobbies, and there are many, are all over the place!
David
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"My conclusion? Go to a shopping mall. It is filled with people sitting there, doing nothing constructive. "
The technical classification for these people is "Numpty". These are the one dimensional people that have no deep thought, do not wonder about the world around them and think that learning anything or spending time creating anything is a unwarranted chore.
My wife's older brother is just that. He has no interests beyond watching sports. He has no interesting possessions so he's bored on a weekend and puts the family in the car and heads to the mall, the shore, or is liable to show up at your house for a meal unannounced.
One time when he was visiting I brought him up to my model room. There he saw the tools I use to build my model cars, as well as a project in progress on my work bench. He looked around and exclaimed, "This is like WORK!" He had no clue that working with my imagination and creating miniatures was rewarding and Zen-like in the focus and relaxation it affords me!
Same with stamp collecting. It's another world to get lost within. Pity the one dimensional numpty!
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To add to Davids positive thunder.... my club had 5 new members join this year...
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""Nobody has hobbies anymore.""
TPFKAMI (The Person Formerly Known As Mrs ikeyPikey) observed that teenagers with an interest - any interest - were more likely to survive their teen years in pretty good shape ... as opposed to teenagers who had no interests outside of themselves.
I think that's pretty much true of people & life in general, be they passing thru illness, divorce, old age (which can be rather like both of those combined), et al.
The more you have going on outside of yourself, the better you'll keep going.
And, no, watching The Idiot Box does not count.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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ikey can i watch Netflix ? i saw a good one the other night about a young woman who walked 1700 miles through Australia to the Indian ocean with only four camels and a dog for company. She did not listen to the white folks who thought she was insane or the Aborigines who told her "too far" she just did her thing !
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Exactly my point!
She had an interest outside of herself, and look what she could do!
As to you: in bed by ten 
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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"i saw a good one the other night about a young woman who walked 1700 miles through Australia to the Indian ocean with only four camels and a dog for company."
It didn't occur to her to ride one of the camels?
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It didn't occur to her to ride one of the camels?
The camels were all carrying dog food.
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Dave,
thanks for the encouraging, and very precise, report. nice to hear it.
Merry Christmas to you. and, if I don't speak before, Happy Boxing Day.
is there a specific day for the sesquicentennial? I wouldn't want to miss it, I mean it only comes around once every.... no wait, just once
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David:
Special Day for the Sesquicentenary:
Dominion Day / Canada Day
1 July 2017
David
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11:13:18am
Very interesting observations, Dave.
Sometimes the appearance of change is taken as a hobby's premature demise.
" Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. "
In the last few months I have re-introduced two mid-thirtish-forty year old
acquaintances to their almost forgotten childhood hobby. It is strangely exhilarating to see the "light dawn" and, as memories flow, the bug's teeth take a sharp bite.
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Cdj:
Good job on the re-introduction!
David
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Chicken Little was wrong! The sky is not falling on this hobby.
As long as there are enough people involved to throw an event like the recent International show in New York City, we are far from over! The fact that I have three clubs to choose from within a reasonable drive. And that a single dealer like Kelleher can put out a free bi-monthly magazine of that quality says there is still a lot of money being invested. The fact that the APS has a physical headquarters with a decent size paid staff... it's far from over!
My other hobby is collecting and building model cars. Yes, the ones we built as kids. And the hobby has become an adult one with the very same participants. The same moaning and groaning about kids not having an interest.
My club runs NNL East, which is the largest model car show in the world. That only is 1200 people. All the manufacturers and what we call the cottage industry, small companies (mostly part time) who make related products attend and that all fits in two gymnasiums. Our exhibition hall is also the size of two gyms and we have 140 8 foot long tables where there are a bit more than 2000 model projects on display.
People do attend this show from around the world. We have vendors from England, Ukraine and this year from Finland. It is on everyone's bucket list to attend this show.
There is no APS with paid staff. We have the International Model Car Builders Museum, a very small place with just a volunteer force. We are always in fundraising mode and always near the last dollar.
Magazine wise, there are two magazines, Scale Auto and Model Cars Magazine. Neither of these are of the quality of the Kelleher publication. They are all volunteers writing the articles. Each one has maybe 5000 circulation.
The kit manufacturers are producing runs of 10,000 - 20,000 kits, where in the heyday it was in the hundreds of thousands, and sometimes topping a million. I don't know how they manage to produce the new kits on these margins. Their focus is the aging community (same as stamps). Again, these companies have 5-10 employees and rely on a lot of volunteer efforts for reviewing tooling samples etc.
This hobby is so small that I personally know everyone running the magazines, the major shows, the museum, and the manufacturers. It's a tight knit community that isn't growing. I'm likely to see the end of it in my lifetime.
We all worry about this hobby's demise and the number of participants can be counted in the thousands rather than the millions that still collect stamps. Knock it off!
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"Chicken Little was wrong! The sky is not falling on this hobby.
"
I like how Scott English summarized it (paraphrased)
The hobby is fine but it is organized philately that is hurting.
The challenge is the declining show dealers that end up subsidizing the exhibitors at shows. The real test is I do not visit the APS site unless I want to either see a back issue of the AP (rare), look at stampstore (more to check pricing), or pay my dues. If it was not for stamp insurance, I am not sure I would have stayed a member.
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"The hobby is fine but it is organized philately that is hurting. "
Scott spoke at our stamp club meeting a few months ago. Both Vince and I were there. He spoke about the number of people who had done stamp transactions on eBay VS APS membership. Very lopsided.
He also spoke about their recruitment efforts, and on scaling back their youth program focus because it wasn't working to bring kids into the hobby, let alone join APS. Their new focus is on people in their 50s, those headed towards retirement who may fondly remember collecting at some point in their life.
The APS demographics is that their biggest population is 60 plus.
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I don't understand the concept of not focusing on bringing kids into the hobby. Those kids will someday be the 50 something's that they're targeting now. The future is always dependent on the kids of today.
WB
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"If it was not for stamp insurance, I am not sure I would have stayed a member."
This is the main reason I maintain my APS membership. I am not a US collector, thus the magazine has limited interest for me. Their approval service typically sells material that I already have.
I do belong to two specialist societies - The Bermuda Collectors Society and the Falkland Islands Study Group. I find the information I can glean from their publications of more value than the APS magazine. The members of both of these relatively small groups are knowledgeable and always willing to share information and insights.
David
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Folks:
My year-end report from the trenches....
For those few of you that do not know, I manage a stamp shop in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We are a bricks and mortar shop, open five days per week (Tues. to Sat.) There are only ten such shops in Canada, that we know of. I am also the principle auctioneer of Sparks Auction, in Ottawa, as well.
End-of-Year Report
------------------
1. Sales remain good. The hobby is strong!
2. People still collect stamps. New people are discovering this wonderful hobby.
3. The majority of the 20 - 30 year old collectors I have come to the shop are women.
4. Few people collect entire countries, they collect sections, like GB pre-decimal Elizabeth II, or specialise in a set or two like Canadian Admirals, French Marianne (one of the series), etc.
5. Topical collecting is growing. These folks are seriously collecting and studying.
6. Overall, the collectors in the shop are well informed and enjoying their hobby.
7. Newfoundland, BNA, and pre-1920 Canada OF GOOD QUALITY remain strong and elusive.
8. There is lots of material coming to the market, as the folks who were collecting from the 1950s to the 1990s are no longer with us.
9. Postcards and other ephemera are making their way into the hobby. Some folks are also collecting coins and currency of their chosen stamp area as well.
10. Postal history is not as big as it looks. The vast majority of collectors are collecting stamps; though there is increased interest in postal history.
11. Much has moved to the internet. That is a good thing.
12. Rejoice... the hobby is strong and people still do mail things, though not as much.
Merry Christmas... and all the best for 2017 when Canadians celebrate our sesquicentenary!
David Giles
Ottawa, Canada
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Thanks for the report sir.
A very Merry Christmas to you and yours.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Sales remain good. The hobby is strong!
Dave, I think it's kinda like Global Warming ... it depends where you live.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Merry Christmas Dave. Thanks for the report.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Great positive report!
Thanks and Merry Christmas Dave
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Thank you for taking the time to create that report! Much appreciated!!
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01:33:20pm
re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Good news!
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Thank you for the update, Mannderineinemgrabenarbeitet (trenchman)!
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Very encouraging end of the year update. Thanks!
And Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah to all.
Eric (Trencherman)
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
David, Thanks for your encouraging report. It is also glad to see that business is doing good for you. Hopefully brick and mortar stamp shops will make a comeback.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Another observation..... not related directly to stamp collecting, but hobbies in general...
In social situations, I meet people at parties, etc. and am asked what I do. When they hear I work for a stamp dealer, the usual responses I get are:
"People still collect stamps?"
"How can you make a living doing that?"
"Nobody has hobbies anymore."
My conclusion? Go to a shopping mall. It is filled with people sitting there, doing nothing constructive. Those are the nobodies that say no-one: collects stamps, or coins, or matchbooks; does macrame, sewing, knitting, etc.
I went to a shop that sells supplies for knitting and sewing, there were 30+ men and women at the back sewing, quilting, and knitting. I went to a railway model club, with a friend a few years ago... over ninety people there, sharing the enthusiasm of that hobby. The Ottawa Coin Club has over 75 active members! The list goes on.
Don't waste your time, and do not listen to the nobodies. The people doing hobbies, and there are many, are all over the place!
David
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
"My conclusion? Go to a shopping mall. It is filled with people sitting there, doing nothing constructive. "
The technical classification for these people is "Numpty". These are the one dimensional people that have no deep thought, do not wonder about the world around them and think that learning anything or spending time creating anything is a unwarranted chore.
My wife's older brother is just that. He has no interests beyond watching sports. He has no interesting possessions so he's bored on a weekend and puts the family in the car and heads to the mall, the shore, or is liable to show up at your house for a meal unannounced.
One time when he was visiting I brought him up to my model room. There he saw the tools I use to build my model cars, as well as a project in progress on my work bench. He looked around and exclaimed, "This is like WORK!" He had no clue that working with my imagination and creating miniatures was rewarding and Zen-like in the focus and relaxation it affords me!
Same with stamp collecting. It's another world to get lost within. Pity the one dimensional numpty!
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09:10:57pm
re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
To add to Davids positive thunder.... my club had 5 new members join this year...
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
""Nobody has hobbies anymore.""
TPFKAMI (The Person Formerly Known As Mrs ikeyPikey) observed that teenagers with an interest - any interest - were more likely to survive their teen years in pretty good shape ... as opposed to teenagers who had no interests outside of themselves.
I think that's pretty much true of people & life in general, be they passing thru illness, divorce, old age (which can be rather like both of those combined), et al.
The more you have going on outside of yourself, the better you'll keep going.
And, no, watching The Idiot Box does not count.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
ikey can i watch Netflix ? i saw a good one the other night about a young woman who walked 1700 miles through Australia to the Indian ocean with only four camels and a dog for company. She did not listen to the white folks who thought she was insane or the Aborigines who told her "too far" she just did her thing !
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Exactly my point!
She had an interest outside of herself, and look what she could do!
As to you: in bed by ten
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
"i saw a good one the other night about a young woman who walked 1700 miles through Australia to the Indian ocean with only four camels and a dog for company."
It didn't occur to her to ride one of the camels?
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
It didn't occur to her to ride one of the camels?
The camels were all carrying dog food.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Dave,
thanks for the encouraging, and very precise, report. nice to hear it.
Merry Christmas to you. and, if I don't speak before, Happy Boxing Day.
is there a specific day for the sesquicentennial? I wouldn't want to miss it, I mean it only comes around once every.... no wait, just once
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
David:
Special Day for the Sesquicentenary:
Dominion Day / Canada Day
1 July 2017
David
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
29 Dec 2016
11:13:18am
re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Very interesting observations, Dave.
Sometimes the appearance of change is taken as a hobby's premature demise.
" Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. "
In the last few months I have re-introduced two mid-thirtish-forty year old
acquaintances to their almost forgotten childhood hobby. It is strangely exhilarating to see the "light dawn" and, as memories flow, the bug's teeth take a sharp bite.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Cdj:
Good job on the re-introduction!
David
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
Chicken Little was wrong! The sky is not falling on this hobby.
As long as there are enough people involved to throw an event like the recent International show in New York City, we are far from over! The fact that I have three clubs to choose from within a reasonable drive. And that a single dealer like Kelleher can put out a free bi-monthly magazine of that quality says there is still a lot of money being invested. The fact that the APS has a physical headquarters with a decent size paid staff... it's far from over!
My other hobby is collecting and building model cars. Yes, the ones we built as kids. And the hobby has become an adult one with the very same participants. The same moaning and groaning about kids not having an interest.
My club runs NNL East, which is the largest model car show in the world. That only is 1200 people. All the manufacturers and what we call the cottage industry, small companies (mostly part time) who make related products attend and that all fits in two gymnasiums. Our exhibition hall is also the size of two gyms and we have 140 8 foot long tables where there are a bit more than 2000 model projects on display.
People do attend this show from around the world. We have vendors from England, Ukraine and this year from Finland. It is on everyone's bucket list to attend this show.
There is no APS with paid staff. We have the International Model Car Builders Museum, a very small place with just a volunteer force. We are always in fundraising mode and always near the last dollar.
Magazine wise, there are two magazines, Scale Auto and Model Cars Magazine. Neither of these are of the quality of the Kelleher publication. They are all volunteers writing the articles. Each one has maybe 5000 circulation.
The kit manufacturers are producing runs of 10,000 - 20,000 kits, where in the heyday it was in the hundreds of thousands, and sometimes topping a million. I don't know how they manage to produce the new kits on these margins. Their focus is the aging community (same as stamps). Again, these companies have 5-10 employees and rely on a lot of volunteer efforts for reviewing tooling samples etc.
This hobby is so small that I personally know everyone running the magazines, the major shows, the museum, and the manufacturers. It's a tight knit community that isn't growing. I'm likely to see the end of it in my lifetime.
We all worry about this hobby's demise and the number of participants can be counted in the thousands rather than the millions that still collect stamps. Knock it off!
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
"Chicken Little was wrong! The sky is not falling on this hobby.
"
I like how Scott English summarized it (paraphrased)
The hobby is fine but it is organized philately that is hurting.
The challenge is the declining show dealers that end up subsidizing the exhibitors at shows. The real test is I do not visit the APS site unless I want to either see a back issue of the AP (rare), look at stampstore (more to check pricing), or pay my dues. If it was not for stamp insurance, I am not sure I would have stayed a member.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
"The hobby is fine but it is organized philately that is hurting. "
Scott spoke at our stamp club meeting a few months ago. Both Vince and I were there. He spoke about the number of people who had done stamp transactions on eBay VS APS membership. Very lopsided.
He also spoke about their recruitment efforts, and on scaling back their youth program focus because it wasn't working to bring kids into the hobby, let alone join APS. Their new focus is on people in their 50s, those headed towards retirement who may fondly remember collecting at some point in their life.
The APS demographics is that their biggest population is 60 plus.
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
I don't understand the concept of not focusing on bringing kids into the hobby. Those kids will someday be the 50 something's that they're targeting now. The future is always dependent on the kids of today.
WB
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re: Year-End Report from the Trenches
"If it was not for stamp insurance, I am not sure I would have stayed a member."
This is the main reason I maintain my APS membership. I am not a US collector, thus the magazine has limited interest for me. Their approval service typically sells material that I already have.
I do belong to two specialist societies - The Bermuda Collectors Society and the Falkland Islands Study Group. I find the information I can glean from their publications of more value than the APS magazine. The members of both of these relatively small groups are knowledgeable and always willing to share information and insights.
David
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