Posted By:
Bob LemkeThat doesn't ring any bells with me. As I said, I had no contact with the ad side of SCD after the early- mid-1990s.
Barry, thanks for your assistance to Don and Justin on the next edition of the catalog. I know what's required to do the job and I am not confident they have been given the necessary resources to make a seamless transition. As far as "selling" the front cover . . . it's not really the "official" cover, just a mailing wrapper. If you bought your SCD at ashop or Barnes & Noble, etc., that false cover is not there. The use of a mailing cover became necessary when SCD ceased polybagging each issue for mailing. As far as that goes, Alan Rosen doesn't "own" that ad space, it is (or was) available on a first-come basis and is (or was) used by all the major auction houses and major dealers. I'm not right up to the minute on that.
I don't want to be an apologist for the current SCD or Standard Catalog, but I did spend over 25 years building those franchises and I retain a sense of "ownership". I also don't want to be one of who looks at the past with rose-colored glasses, for we certainly had our problems and challenges. To answer FGN's question about how things (presumably he means complaints about advertisers) were handled "back in my day," I can tell you this. From the day I started at Krause in 1974, they maintained a Customer Service Department, essentially a full-time person who dealt with such complaints. Ad policies for each publication were clearly spelled out and they were basically black-and-white, there were no gray areas. While each publisher or his designated ad manager had the ultimate "say," the Customer Service Department was responsible for investigating reader complaints against advertisers and attempting resolution. When all else failed, it was up to the publisher or ad manager to determine whether or not ad privileges were suspended. SCD readers were fortunate in that both Doug Watson, who had the title of publisher from 1981-83, then me, were dedicated collectors who had the growth and health of the hobby foremost in mind when making those decisions. We had the full support of Chet Krause and, later, Cliff Mishler, if we decided to forego immediate ad dollars for the overall good of the hobby. You also had a great ally in former ad manager Dan Albaugh, who hated hobby crooks with a passion and had an eye for ferretting out the bad ones. Together we rigorously enforced ad policy asnd when the crooks came up with new scams, we added new policies to protect our readers and the legitimate advertisers. As I said yesterday, when Krause was sold, the Customer Service Department was disbanded as one of the many bottom-line enhancing moves the new owners instituted to make the company attractive for the next buyer. Sadly, once those types of cuts are made, the lost services are never restored. For all practical purposes, buying from SCD's pages is the same caveat emptor situation that exists on eBay, at shows and at shops. I can't speak for the overall quality of Coach's Corner advertised items, but I can ask you this: What do you think would happen to SCD if CC's ad pages disappeared? My guess is that the publication would cease to exist. Maybe that's as it should be.