Welcome to the website for the international fair for postage stamps, coins,
phone cards, minerals, and the hobby and art of collecting – the largest
gathering of collectors of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe.

Sběratel.info

News Bulletin No. 30

Welcome to the jubilee 10th annual fair Collector 2007

In the coming days, we will be sending application forms for participation at this year's jubilee fair Collector to dealers and collectors from the fields of philately, historical postcards, coins, banknotes, cards, minerals and precious stones. The fair Collector will be held at its traditional venue, The Palace of Industry at the Exhibition Grounds in Prague 7 - Holešovice from 14 to 16 September.
Anyone who would like to present an exhibit at the fair but has not received an application form by mail may request one at the address of the event organizer:
Progres Partners Advertising, spol. s r.o., Opletalova 55, 110 00 Prague 1, phone: 224 218 403, fax: 224 218 312, email: sberatel@ppa.cz nebo kopacek@ppa.cz.
Last year, 214 exhibitors from 32 countries participated at the fair, and viewing the exhibits were 13,655 visitors, one out of six of whom were from abroad.

The first registered exhibitors

Although we have so far sent out the first few application forms a few days ago only to postal administrations and mints, we already have records of the receipt of several dozen application forms downloaded from the website or requested from us. Besides several Czech exhibitors, we already know that participants at this year’s fair will include the successful postal administrations of Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia, North Korea and other countries, the Czech Mint, the Austrian Mint and Kremnica Mint of Slovakia, Daniel Hugo Mello Teggia from Argentina, Trevor Pateman from the United Kingdom, Hasamettin Atik from Turkey, George Shalev from Bulgaria, Robert Rozman from Slovenia, Xu Wei from China, Yevgeniy Nikiforov from Russia etc. etc. For the first time Jugomarka will participate this year. In the name of the PTT system of Serbia and Montenegro, the public enterprise Jugomarka is responsible for the realization of annual programs of postage stamps issues.

A surprise from the British Postal Museum and Archive

For this year’s jubilee event, in cooperation with the British Postal Museum and Archive from London, we have prepared a big surprise for visitors. The secret will be revealed just before the fair. The British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) gathers and cares for documents of the four centuries of development of postal services, valuable collections and unique postal artifacts. Through regular presentations at exhibitions, it also gives the general public access to its collection.

An important message to exhibitors about fraudulent service

Once again we must warn against the deceptive and dangerous activities of the Austrian company Construct Data Verlag AG. Thanks to our own investigation and on the basis of notification from our exhibitors, we are registering an increasing number of cases of offers for the publication of company data in the catalog FAIR Guide. The Austrian company Construct Data Verlag AG presents the catalog as “the largest internet list of fairs and exhibitors” and as “a powerful medium for getting new customers, finding business partners or for market research.”

We wish to inform exhibitors about the risks connected with offers like this one. The recipe of Construct Data Verlag AG is simple. It is likely that the firm gets contacts from trade fair catalogs that are freely accessible on web pages in electronic format.
But once the company catches you in it’s nets, it changes its song. Usually it’s not until after getting an invoice for nearly EUR 1000 for the first year of service that the customer realizes that the form it has filled out is a contract, and moreover that it cannot be canceled and that it is for a three-year term.
We wish to inform exhibitors that the activities of the company Construct Data Verlag AG have nothing to do with our business activity, although its application form could lead one to that false conclusion.

Back in November 2005 we sent the company a written letter of protest against these deceptive practices, but that brought no result, of course.
Please pay careful attention to the contents of the form and especially to the contractual conditions that are deliberately placed where they can be overlooked during casual reading, and carefully consider whether you really want the services being offered.
For more information about the practices of this Austrian company and about how to protect yourself from them, see the following:
http://www.infolink.cz/constructdata/sos.htm
http://www.ufi.org/pages/thetradefairsector/fairguide.asp
http://www.stopecg.org/construct_data_fairguide.htm
As was reported back in 2004 by the Committee of German Exhibitions and Fairs (AUMA), on the basis of a verdict rendered in a court of law, the company Construct Data has no legal claim against the customer, even if the customer signs the offer form. More information about the verdict is available at http://www.auma.de/content/meldung29_d.htm