Hello Brett:
This is by no means a slap at you- so please, do not take it as such. I am assuming "RRP"- has to do with retail price?
I've had a good week to digest the overall fallout of the Hack show. I understand Mr. Neilson's decision and he was kind enough to provide me a very succint pm about it a few days ago. One of the two sellers was Stockade Miniatures from Stroudsburg Pa- a company I am very very fond of, in fact, with all respect to George, the Reuss's, Sierra and Big Stan and John Z in Gettysburg, there is simply no one else I would rather deal with.
From what I saw on Sunday, Stockade was not in fact discounting current retail items- they obtained a collection (again, so they say) from a collector and were selling those pieces at a substantial markup. The 20% discount they were offering was being applied to those pieces. One I was particularly interested in was the WS59 jagdpanther- retailed for $99- they were asking $250 but the show "Special" was $200- still twice the original retail.
I have certainly never been privy to the dealer contracts with KC but, based on the decisions that were made, sounds like this action was against the rules and now Mike is on the outside looking in. Mike and Noreen have been some of the longest KC dealers in the US, they always sing the praises of KC and they got me into it back in 99. Not to mention the fact, that they have maintained a brick and mortar shop as well- which helps promote the hobby to the tourist foot traffic in the area.
These guys weren't pushing rafters of KC sets year after year- they were very much the quintessential American mom and pop shop- you can always count on great customer service from Mike and Noreen- Mike with his butchered bowl cut is always a laugh a minute.
Being a CPA, I am probably more than anal about this but I have held onto my sales slips from those guys over the years- no discounts were ever given, asked for, or offered- in fact, Mike always seemed to be a tad overzealous applying the retired premium imo.
I accept that they are accountable for their actions but I just believe that this was a case where if anyone had their boots on the ground last Sunday, they would have seen that these guys just weren't doing what has been alleged on this forum.
There are a lot of other heavy hitting KC collectors who have dealt with them over the years besides myself. I just feel like the hobby loses bigtime over this one.
