I have not talked about how my health lately because everything is on track. I had a check up with my heart doctor recently and everything was fine. I try to workout twice a week where I do 30 minutes on the bike then work out on various weight machines. If you have a Planet Fitness in your area, I recommended it as their price is very reasonable.
This last health scare had made me more aware about things. I try to eat healthy and stay active. Also I lost a very good friend recently who ran a comic book store. He had a massive heart attack and never reached the hospital. One thing that did not help him was he was a heavy smoker. I avoid people as much as possible who smoke and I am glad most of my friends do not.
Doing this blog is a lot of work. Besides creating postings in addition to the ones sent in by our readers. I have to check the spam. I have Askimet, which catches most of the spam, so far that has been 107,000 plus. A few will sneak in but are caught in a hold box for me to decide if they are valid or not. I check spam box several times a day to see if any legitimate postings have accidently entered the spam. There are one or two legitimate ones every so often. I am willing to pay money to get information to improve the site besides asking for help.
Some people wonder why I do not go to OTSN as I said it is because of the cost. Besides I will have a number of shows coming up starting next month in about 3 hour radius of home. These shows save me the cost of boarding the dogs and I am home by the end of the day. One bonus is we have found great places to eat. My late father went by the philosophy that if you go some where eat good. Add to the fact of how bad the fast food is(the salt content of fast food is crazy.) I want a good place to eat, so we either do a dinner or fast casual. The shows that we will be doing are East, South and West of us. We will keep you posted.
I appreciate your efforts to keep up this site, Stad, as I’m sure do many others. I check it daily & comment occasionally if I have something that I think is relevant to say. Always good to hear updates on the toy soldier hobby & fun to see the discussions on the various topics. Wishing you & family (that includes those three pups!) good health & much happiness for a long time.
Good to hear Paul, Keep on Keeping on !
Paul, I was thinking you had to go north to hit the East Coast Toy Soldier Show, but when I rechecked the map, I can see it would be to your east, since New Jersey seems to run along the entire eastern border of Pennsylvania.
I think every toy soldier collector would enjoy going to OTSN at least once, to see what all the fuss is about. I know you’ve been several times (at least twice) because that’s where I met you, and then ran into you and your new wife there the next year as well.
My wife, who has been with me to OTSN 3 different times, now stays home specifically because we don’t like leaving our dogs and cats. They miss us, and we miss them! With my wife taking care of them at home, I can enjoy the two out of state shows I attend (Indy and Chicago) because I know the family pets are being well taken care of at home. And she doesn’t mind because she doesn’t find looking at thousands of toy soldiers all that interesting anyway.
Don
I agree that a collector should do OTSN once. I would like to get back and hope to do so one of these days.
Don;I agree .I had been there once only(2003) and was a great show, but miss the early birds and sales before show day at hotel rooms.
Next time I will do it in that way as I heard is the most intense and interesting part. By time show start half of goody are gone in these inter-collectors sales at room level.
I was planning by this year too but other personal and business things come first and interrupt the plans.
So I will miss the goodies and Ed conversion this time.
I’ve been wanting to go to OTSN for years; sadly it comes at a bad time for me – right at the end of the Summer and right before Christmas. It’s not as bad as before I retired but still a bit inconvenient. By the same token I can understand why the timing of the show is perfect for the supply side of the hobby. I do hope to be in a position to go within the next few years while I still can.
The hotel OTSN uses has the most confusing room layout I have ever seen, and I traveled in sales for 26 years. You get confused and turned around trying to see all the rooms. Like Stad the expense is too high, flying auto rental & hotel $1,000 and if you are selling figures one at time you need to sell $2,000 just to pay for your expenses and what you sold (figuring you try to double your money on your inventory). Back when I was in sales I would visit my accounts and my airfare, auto rental and 2 of my 3 days food and lodging were business expenses. You need to be selling playsets or expensive metals to make a profit. I would ship a few boxes to the hotel and do room selling but it was hit or miss and I mainly bought for resale via my website. The one year I did the actual show the crowd was low (maybe 600) unlike early years when it was a free for all with guys staking out parking lots looking for good deals before stuff was even brought into the hotel and maybe 1,500-2,000 people came on the show day.
Kent
I agree the hotel has one of the worse layouts I have ever seen. Laurie who has been in travel for too many years was amazed on the layout. I agree it is tricky on selling at the show, I used the show mainly for buying goods, which I can do just as well in this area through sources and sales. Like you I am very concern on the bottom line as I said in my post overhead is important. My area is rich in shows so I have opportunities to get new stock without the overhead of hotel. What year did you do the show?
When you are trying to hit every single room on 4th and 5th floor (and in the heyday 3rd floor too), it could be difficult to ensure you weren’t missing a particular hall, because of the confusing layout. But the show now distributes flooring maps, and it’s relatively easy to mark where you’ve been and where you haven’t been.
I myself think it is difficult, especially in these waning days of the hobby, to make a profit even after the travel, hotel, and food expense of being in a somewhat upscale hotel in the Chicago suburbs. But I’m usually there as a buyer/consumer, and for that I find OTSN a paradise of toy soldier options and availability.
But on a few occasions, in addition to buying, I’ve sold from my room, and have always found large numbers of serious buyers who purchase more than at other shows. I’ve had many reasonably priced things at the Indy and Michigan shows that didn’t sell, but that at OTSN were scooped right up.
But I do think that although the number of dealers and show tables at OTSN has held steady, the number of attendees who come to buy has somewhat declined, and hence dealers experience a little less room traffic. But it is still be substantial.
And OTSN remains, of course, the largest toy soldier show in the world. There isn’t any show, anywhere, that compares in scale to OTSN. Go to the OTSN website, and read Don Pielin’s message for this year’s OTSN. He and Steve Sommers are rightly proud of what they started 35 years ago.