Colnect on Sberatel - Part 1

Colnect presented on Sberatel 2011 fair in Prague, Czech Republic. The fair has been attended by over 12,000 people. It has been a lot of fun to meet Colnect members and collectors who were not yet familiar with Colnect.

Colnect's first fantasy banknotes have been publicly presented for the first time. Here you can see the Colnect dollar presented

Colnect had a table right at the entrance to the fair so that visitors would see Colnect as the first thing in the fair. Our table featured Frognector Da-Green himself, new fliers (or: fantasy banknotes) of Colnect, Colnect T-Shirts and a projector that played videos of Colnect and presented the site in real time.





Here Colnect's founder, Amir Wald [tcawe], is seen waiting for collectors at the table. Each day Mr. Wald put on a Colnect T-Shirt of a different color.



On this picture you can see Frognector and Moo resting after sipping a tasty Czech beer.



This year's fair has been a success as published by its organizer, Mr. Jindřich Jirásek: "This year's Collector Fair, 14th in a row, was the biggest in its history - both as for the space expanse and the number of the participating exhibitors. The number of paying visitors entering its gate exceeded 12,000... Many thanks to all visitors and to all 260 exhibitors, this time from 35 countries from all around the globe, for coming..."

More pictures from the fair coming in part 2...

Giving Life to a New Catalog - Meet Carine De Pauw [crookscarine]

Meet one of Colnect's most notable contributors and the creator and coordinator of the world's most extensive tea bag catalog, Carine de Pauw [crookscarine]. As her Colnect profile shows, Carine is a serious collector of stamps, phone cards, tea bags and beer mats. She has been a Colnect member since 2005, when Colnect was still a website only catering to phone card collectors.



Carine has just celebrated her birthday and we thought it would be a good time to feature her on Colnect's blog and ask her a few questions.

When and how did you begin collecting in general and tea bags specifically?

I've started to collect stamps during my childhood. Now I have other collections as well, of which the most important ones are phone cards and teabags.
Our daughter began collecting teabags in 1996. She didn't have enough time so I took it over. I'm always looking for new items for all my collections.
Luckily I have a lot of good friends and relatives who are helping me. Every time they are going on holidays, they come back with new collectibles I can add to my collections.



How and why did you start tea bag category on Colnect?

As I knew many people who collected teabags, I've asked Amir [tcawe] to start a tea bag category on Colnect. He was happy to add the new category and I became the coordinator of the tea bags catalog in August 2009.
Now I post scans of my own teabags and of the ones I receive from the other members. For the time being we are with 150 tea bag collectors. The catalog shows 13,236 teabags from 1,139 brands and out of 75 different countries.

How often do you use Colnect?

I'm now using the site on a daily basis to manage my swaps and to add new tea bags to our tea bag catalog.



What do you like best about Colnect?
Colnect is perfect. You can reach many collectors from all over the world.
Of course new members are more than welcome. The more members we have, the bigger our teabag collection will be, and the more possibility we have to exchange.
Last but not least I would like to thank Amir for all the work he's doing.



Thank you Carine for the interview and we all wish you a happy birthday, happy collecting and enjoyable time on Colnect :)

Kolaportið, Reykjavik, Iceland - Icelandic Collectors

Collectors be warned, Frognector is out on the loose and has started his journey around the world. You can meet Frognector and Colnect's founder, Amir Wald, when they pass near you. Big collector club conventions and collector fairs are Frognector's favorites but if you have an interesting collectors shop or own an interesting personal collection, don't hesitate to make contact. If you meet Frognector and get to take a picture with him and your collection, you may win cool prizes such as Colnect memorabilia and Colnect premium membership.

Finding collectors in Iceland was not an easy task for Frognector. When he heard of the weekend market in Kolaportið, Reykjavík he was excited.



The trip there unveiled two stalls (there's supposed to be a third one) of charmingly nice collectors who also sell Icelandic stamps, Icelandic coins, Icelandic banknotes and other collectibles.



Frognector heard about the different collecting clubs in Iceland and learnt that there are relatively a lot of collectors in Iceland. However, as it's a country with a relatively small population, only ~330,000 people, there aren't that many collectors.

A big challenge to collectors in Iceland who wish to exchange with other collectors is the Icelandic customs. Many times they charge a very high tax rate which can make a swap or trade too costly.

We wish to welcome collectors from Iceland to join Colnect and be a part of our growing community. So if you're an Icelander, join us now. If you're not but know collectors from Iceland, help them join Colnect. Iceland has produced some beautiful collectibles and we'd all benefit from having more collectors from Iceland on Colnect.


Happy collecting :)