Glad to know you'll get your Phals, WC8. I can sympathize - I'm leaving for France in a few weeks and don't want to leave new plants at home with my non-orchid growing plant sitter. So I won't get my sanderianum crosses until the end of April. Ditto for a division I've been drooling over for almost a year now which is finally available. And Calvin, it's all about supply and demand. HUGE US market, small Canadian market. The Canadian growers make more of an effort to be able to export than the US growers do. If you want to do it legally, PM me. A friend and I ordered from Andy's this past summer, got our import and CITES certificates ourselves, picked up the plants in Watertown (I think) at a shipping depot type of place, barerooted them (a pain in the you know where since they're all mounted with tons of roots), had them inspected ourselves in Syracuse for the phyto and then brought them back across the border, completely legally and without confiscations. The cost of all certificates/inspections was probably around $150. We did have to order enough plants to make that and the effort worth it. Or that's our rationalization at least. And boy, are the plants we got gorgeous! [Another evil, enabling grin] Julie

If you have a local club or know of people in the area interested in an exchange you can simply meet in person. Shipping leaves is fairly easy too. Cut them from the plant, wrap the cut portion in a moistened paper towel. Take a piece of tin foil and wrap it around this. The tin foil keeps things in place. Put each variety in a small, labeled zip top bag. Pack the bags loosely in a box to avoid crushing. Priority mail is fine, but ship early in the week so they don't sit on Sunday. Don't ship when temps are in the mid-80's to 90's at either location without an appropriately-sized cool pack. Cold weather shipping requires some insulation, and possibly a hot pack.

Bradford Exchange created a comfortable nische for itself in their "Collectible" plates. The problem with owning these is that anything sold as "collectible" already has too many people buying them. The market becomes saturated. That lowers demand, which lowers value. One would be lucky to sell a Bradford Exchange plate for a third of its original cost. Luckily, I only purchased one and really love it, so I don't feel taken. Bradford Exchange exaggerated the value of their merchandise to their customers with clever marketing tactics: - Items sold as heirloom quality & an investment. The fact is that Bradford Exchange sold new plates with no real value. - Customers were led to believe that 95-150 firing days meant limited production numbers. The fact is that each editon created from 8,500 to 113,000 of each plate. - Plates marketed as "Limited Editions" were sometimes run to 100,000 plates produced & sold. "Collector" plates cannot be collector plates in a saturated market. Re: Buybacks: - Any attempts to sell back to Bradford Exchange will incur a 30% commission fee payable by you to the exchange. - Replacements.com is a huge rip-off. They don't even pay you 1/4 of what they will charge customers for the items you sell them. - There is no movement of these plates on the online auction sites like, e-Bay, Goodwill, Etsy. - The best way to sell these is through a local consignment shop. That will bring you the highest price; perhaps 1/2 the original price. Speak with your local shops about displaying your plates there on consignment. They will want a cut of the profit. Alternately, you can e-mail a few vintage shop keepers and let them know that if they have any customers who come in looking for these, you have them. Provide your contact number. Some shop keeper may want a cut of the profits for the referral. If you have a large collection, you may want to come to an agreement on percentage of each plate sold, just to keep things moving. All the best to you!

I'm with you lowspark, as far as blaming the training. I'm a business owner, and the way our employees communicate with anyone who calls my business is extremely important to me. Every scenario is thought out, nothing is left to chance. I have a friend who owns several fast food franchises. He and his wife started with one and did all the work - along with recruiting her brother and sister. Now he pays well to have excellent management. Small franchises are either manned by an owner/operator, or by hired hands with no real manager on site. Guess which ones you get better service at? Some franchises require an owner/operator or an investor with experience in that franchise. It doesn't do all the rest of the franchises any good if there's the few that are poorly-run. People don't think it's just the one franchise. They think, "all Acme Burgers are bad!" Jerzeegirl, please reconsider not talking to the owner. You may be saving someone their entire livelihood, as most small franchises like Subway are "subsistence" shops - they bring in just enough profit for the owner's family to live on. The real problems are with large corporations/public companies (like certain phone carriers, department stores, gorcery stores) who don't foster good service, and there's noone to complain to and noone cares.