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Originally posted by Ginny:
wonder what happened to all those who are no longer posting .... kinda sad.

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Originally posted by Mark:
Considering this topic was first started on January 20, 2001 (by andi), I think it is really, really uncanny that you pulled it out from the Way-Back posts right at the exact time I was reading it!

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That is amazing~!!!

Considering this topic was first started on January 20, 2001 (by andi), I think it is really, really uncanny that you pulled it out from the Way-Back posts right at the exact time I was reading it!

...I also noticed that I didn't post in it - 'til now...

[This message has been edited by Mark (edited 01-10-2007).]

IP: 66.32.214.188

Bumping so the newbies can see who we all are, and can tell about their collecting story, too!

This thread is SO old....it's fun to go back and read everyone's posts on it.

quote:

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Originally posted by Todd Ray:
Well gosh! Thank you for asking! Its a long and dull story, but you asked!

My name is Todd Ray, I own and operate YuleLog Software. I have an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Memphis, and a masters degree in Engineering Management from Christian Brothers College. For my day job, I am a Data Network engineer for FedEx.

In the early 90's one of my co-workers (at that time I was working for Dover Elevator), was doing pretty well selling a program for Horse owners called HorseTrak. It was a data base for people who own horses. It was only available for DOS based (before Windows!) machines, and he knew that I was a Macintosh user, so we worked out a deal for me to develop a version of HorseTrak for Macs. I worked with him for a couple of years (with him getting most of the money!), and I figured that perhaps I could find a niche of my own. More on this later...

My wife, Donna, has a brother in law who owns a small Hallmark store in Batesville, MS. Every year, since the early 80s, she would buy an ornament or two from his store. I didn't pay much attention to them. In 1991, she bought me the Starship Enterprise! Of course, being a geek (he said with pride!), I am a big Star Trek fan! I was pleased to get the ship. The next year we bought, the Shuttle Craft. In 1993, Donna's brother-in-law saw our tree and commented that the enterprise was worth over $150 dollars! I was floored. I had never heard of the secondary market! We got one of the printed price guides, and I discovered that we has several that had appreciated nicely!

Well again, being a geek, I had to inventory the ornaments and calculate what they were worth. I was impressed! I also realized that I might have found my niche! I wanted to be able to quickly see a list all of the ornaments, their prices, and to be able to inventory my collection. I was sure others would like this too! Who knew! Perhaps I could sell a copy or two per week and help pay for my collection!

I bought all of the printed price guides I could find and the only collectors data base program that I could find. The program ( I won't mention any names...) would only run on DOS/Windows machines, and it didn't run very well... I found it clunky to use, and very unstable. It also used prices that I found to be a little hard to believe. When I went to secondary market shows, I didn't have to pay those prices and no one would offer me those prices! (I still don't understand where they get those prices!) Most of the printed price guides were similar in nature. One was different. Ellen Gordon, had a simple, printed price guide, The Collection Connection, that listed a low, high, and average price. I found these prices to be much closer to reality! Ellen achieved this by collecting lots of price lists (not guides) from secondary market dealers all over the country. She then spent days, typing these lists into her computer. From this she calculated an average price and extracted the high and low.

I contacted Ellen and we worked out a deal where she would license her price guide to me. I wanted to create a program for Macintosh users, but as a bonus, the software that I used to create the program could run on Windows machines too! I wanted a catchy name (the competition's name was as clunky as the software!) So I brainstormed. Let's see, Santa's List..., Ornament Inventory..., Ornament List..., Ornament Diary..., Ornament Log..., Yule Log! Yes! No wait lets do that computer name trick of running words together with capital letters in the middle! YuleLog!

After weeks and weeks of evenings and weekends, YuleLog 1.0 was ready. This was July 1995. The World Wide Web was just barely there... I was a charter member of America On Line. Back when AOL was Macintosh and Apple only (bet some of you didn't know that!) I remember when there was only one chat room and it would only hold 27 people! I had frequented the AOL Hallmark forums (as well as Prodigy and few others) and when I first started thinking about YuleLog, I had posted the idea and lots of folks said they would be interested. So when I finally had a product to offer, I posted on these boards. The response was slow, but encouraging, considering it was July! Sales were steady, and people were pleased! I asked for feedback and listened when it was offered. Sales have increased every year since and I have a very impressive rate of yearly update customers! In 6 years, only three people have returned YuleLog. One of those bought it again later when they got a faster computer! I now have customers in every state, and in several countries! While it hasn't grown big enough to be a full time job, it more than pays for my ornament and computer habit! And it has helped me make dozens of friends all over the country!

Most of my marketing has always been on-line. First it was mostly AOL and Prodigy. I have advertised in some of the printed Ornament periodicals, but of course my target market has to have a computer, so on-line works best! I remember, in 1995, asking my local Collector's Club, the River City Collectors, if I could tell them about my program. Being a geek, and not a public speaker, I was very nervous speaking front of this group of about 30 people! I was talking too fast, being too technical, and I was getting a lot of blank stares! So I asked how many of them had computers, and three people raised their hands! Oppps! Luckily, times have changed and now lots more collectors have computers!

When the World Wide Web first started getting popular, another of my co-workers started a small business as a local Internet Service Provider (he offered to let me in, but I told him that he would be put out of business pretty quickly by AOL and Compuserve! Boy was I wrong! He is still going and doing very well!) and he helped me to set up a web page for YuleLog. This was in November of 1995. The web was young, and traffic was sparse! Hallmark didn't even have a web site. My site was sort of an on line sales brochure. I would post about it on AOL and the other sites. I knew I needed a way to build traffic. I remembered the AOL and Prodigy Hallmark forums and looked around on the Web for something similar. There wasn't anything! I talked with my friend and he set me up with a little freeware Guest Book program and the YuleLog Bulletin Board was born in November of 96. It was the first place on the World Wide Web where Hallmark Collectors could come and talk about their hobby!

The original YuleLog Bulletin Board only had one page. It was a combination of chat and buy and sell. I had used on-line bulletin boards (dial up! way before the web!) and the AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy forums for years, so I knew that they could turn ugly quickly! So I have always insisted on people being polite. Most of the people who use YuleLog, understand and appreciate this, so YuleLog is usually a pretty comfortable place to visit! I try to monitor it every day (usually several times a day) and I try to keep it pleasant. Most of the time that is an easy job, but it can be tricky at times! This little virtual village is populated by people all over the country, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. But, for the most part, Hallmark Collectors are good people, so it usually goes pretty well! (Another indication of the goodness of Hallmark collectors is that in 6 years of selling YuleLog, I have never received a bounced check or had problems with Credit Card payments!)

As the traffic on the YuleLog Bulletin board grew, it became obvious that I needed to expand. The first expansion was to add the Beanie Baby board. I had to do this, just to keep the Hallmark board from being flooded with Beanie posts! Of course, the Beanie craze is tapering off now and that once busy board is kind of lonesome now... During the peak of the frenzy, the Beanie side was just as busy as the Hallmark side.

About two years ago, after much foot dragging, I changed the format of the board to its current version. This upset a lot of the original board users, but I think most will now agree that the new format is better in lots of ways! It is a little more complicated, but offers so much more! A little over a year ago, the YuleLoggers were formed and now is one of the largest members of the Keepsake Ornament Collectors Clubs!

When CD-ROMs became widely used, it gave me the opportunity to add photos to the YuleLog software. I contacted Hallmark to see if they could help me with this project, and our own Beth Wall was the representative who helped me obtain permission from Hallmark to use their photos! Thanks Beth and Hallmark! This made YuleLog software so much better! Hallmark has always been very helpful and gracious!

So, in summary, YuleLog, the company, is pretty much just me! My wife and kids help out when it is time to mail out all of those update order forms each year. We set up a huge assembly line in the living room and dining room to stuff and stamp boxes and boxes of envelopes! My wife puts up with me spending too much time at the computer answering eMail and monitoring the bulletin board. My kids dutifully carry the days orders to the mail box when I ask. Donna helps me with the data entry each year when we add all of the new items. I get lots of input from my customers and the YuleLog bulletin board users. The YuleLogger's club is ran by volunteers and elected officers.

However, YuleLog is much more than just a company now. It is quite literally, a community. We have members from everywhere! We share in each other's joys and sorrows! We have witnessed births, deaths, tragedies, sickness, weddings, graduations, layoffs, retirements, birthdays, anniversaries and of course holidays! We sent a one legged elf all over the country and to Japan and Canada! We have conversed via eMail, Bulletin Board, chat room, telephone and we have met at the Hallmark events and secondary market shows!

You have brightened my life and I thank you! Y'all come back now! You here?

[This message has been edited by Todd Ray (edited 01-21-2001).]

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Mark msockwell@cccnj.net
Vineland, NJ

This thread is SO old....it's fun to go back and read everyone's posts on it.

Darrin and I were married in March of 1996. It was now Christmastime, and we were putting up our first tree together. I had gone downstairs to get my tree decorations and no-name ornaments, and was sitting in the floor looking through the box at the same old, tired ornaments. Balls, ribbons, poinsettia leaves, garland...boring. Suddenly, Darrin said, "Should I go downstairs and get my box of ornaments?" Having forgotten that he had brought ornaments to our marriage, I said, "Oh, sure!"

So he brought them upstairs, and we sat on the floor together. This was exciting, this was something new! New ornaments! And were they different....Santas, cars,...and not a ball ornament in sight! Even ones that moved when you plugged them in - now THAT was cool!

Being partial to Santas, I picked up one that looked like he was from the old world. Examining him very carefully, like I wanted to just drink in the gorgeous detail of him. Turned him upside down and spied some kind of symbol on his feet. Hmmm......what is it? I said, "Honey, what's this little number 2 on the bottom of it?" He said, "That means it's 2nd in the series." And then....THEN...the phrase that is still echoed in our house every Christmas when we haul up 600 Hallmark ornaments to decorate with.....I said, "WHAT'S A SERIES?" with all the innocence and ignorance of a new Hallmark collector who has just taken their first "hit," not knowing how their life has just radically changed.

As he explained to me that a series is a group of ornaments connected by a common theme, and that every year a new ornament in that series is issued....I was hooked. For some reason, I LOVED the idea of series ornaments. Tying one Christmas to the next. Being able to look back through the years at all the different issues, and to see how your collection of just one santa had grown to now 10.

It was the #2 Merry Olde Santa that I was holding in my hands that day when I discovered what a Hallmark Keepsake Ornament series was. He didn't have the #1 at the time, but we have them all now.

Just a few days later, we were out shopping and wandered into a Hallmark store. Can you believe I'd never looked at Hallmark ornaments before that? NEVER! (I even discovered later that when Nicholas was born, someone had given us the #1 Puppy Love for him, and it wasn't until I started collecting Hallmarks that I realized what it was. Now Nicholas' #1 Puppy Love is signed by Anita Marra Rogers, and he is still collecting the series.)

Anyway, we ventured into this store, and there, THERE hanging on the display was this beautiful angel girl wearing a purple lacy dress, holding a silver container with purple pansies in it. She was gorgeous. I searched the shelves, but couldn't find her. Asked for assistance from the clerk, who acted like I'd asked for the moon when I told him which one I was looking for! She told me that one was "sold out," all over Kansas City, and that I probably wouldn't find it anywhere. (I also learned that it was FIRST in a series, so I had to have it even more!!!) Then she told me that next Wednesday they were going to sell their display ornaments, and if I was first in line when the store opened, I could get it.

It was December, it was very cold, it was very early in the morning...and I had to go to work on Wednesday, but I NEEDED that ornament! I went to the store at 6:00 am, and sat on the freezing concrete for 3 hours until the store opened at 9:00. I was bundled like an Eskimo,..had those warm gel packs in my mittens, had a pillow to set my rear on, but it was 6 degrees below zero and I kept asking myself why I was doing this. I'd never camped out for anything before!

As it got close to store opening time, other people showed up, and by the time the store opened at 9:00, there were about 5-6 of us. I had learned that the guy in line behind me was also there to grab my Pansy. Also that he worked at the store, and so knew exactly where she was hanging. When the doors opened, he sprinted ahead of me and grabbed her. I was so shocked..stunned...in tears. The kind of tears that just spring to your eyes and you can't help it. Instantaneously. Then embarassment....I had no idea why I was crying over not getting this ornament, but I was a mess the whole day. I think a lot of it was embarassment...after I'd sat there in sub-zero weather for so long, to not even get the thing I'd come for.

A couple of weeks later, while celebrating Christmas at Darrin's parents house, I was handed a gift to open. As I opened the gift, Darrin and his mom both had a special twinkle in their eyes. Yes, it was Pansy. I'll never forget it. Darrin's mom, being a longtime Hallmark collector, knew of the secondary market, of course, and had contacted a dealer here in town to get her for Darrin to give to me. Darrin had told her he HAD to find Pansy to give to me, after what had happened at the store. I'm so glad he did, because Pansy means more to me now than if I *had* gotten it that morning at the store.

In 1992 our pastor and his wife had a open house for everyone to come to see their Christmas decorations. I saw a small Hallmark tree with miniature ornaments on it. They had one ornament I just loved. It was called bright stringers. It was two little blue birds holding a string of Christmas lights. It took along time to find it at a secondary market.
My first Hallmark ornament was Nature's Angels #3 miniature I bought that after Christmas.
For along time I only bought the miniatures then I saw the Easter/Spring ornaments and bought some of them. Then on to Merry Miniatures and then at last big ornaments.
Then in to the big Hallmark club.
This weekend going to Atlanta to Jubilee for my first big Hallmark show. I have been to Tampa for 4 of the Flings on the saturday shows but hope to go to the dinner on friday on next years Fling. It has to do with this board and people telling me what I missed out on.
So all you new people I hope you have as much fun on this board as I am having.

Loved the AOL boards until they got yukky. I remember Lora being referee, and what a thankless task that must have been sometimes!

I originally found YuleLog through an Internet search my first day online, and then lost it because I didn't know how to bookmark at that time! Just by chance I found it again a few weeks later, and for a long time I visited both YuleLog and AOL's Hallmark boards daily. When the AOL boards changed, I stopped going there altogether and made YuleLog my "home".

That was when the old/classic board was up, and I really thought it was fantastic because I was actually able to use it. When YuleLog BB went to the new format, I dug in my heels and refused to change. Well, being left behind was no fun, so I opened my mind and spent one whole day trying to figure out how to use it (I'm slow). Now I go through withdrawal if I miss a day.

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Originally posted by hmarklover2:
(Although I don't think Lora remembers me.)

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BARBARA - I do too remember you!!!

Aren't you glad you came to the YuleLog board? I just hated it when AOL started putting all those restrictions on what we could post - nothing for sale, because they wanted their cut.

We had a great group there & met at conventions, events & were even credited for having been mostly responsible for Hallmark giving us the September convention in 1993. But when Prodigy raised its rates, we all went our separate ways, some to GEnie, some to other spots.

I found the Hallmark board, made some friends there and was VERY unhappy to see it go when it did, especially when it was replaced with a sad substitute.

I lurked here for years, but since I'm not a buyer/seller, it was a pain to wade thru all the posts, trying to find conversation. So I was very happy when Todd started the new & improved version.

Thanks again Todd!

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Karen W2 - Oceanside, CA.

I "retired" just over 5 years ago to become a full-time stay-at-home mom to my two sons, now ages 4 & 6 (both expecting birthdays soon!) I started collecting ornaments in 1994, after my first son's birth; but really became HOOKED about one year later. I have about 275 Hallmark ornaments.

Thanks, Todd for such a great place to come and "visit". And thanks to everyone else for making it such a nice place to "check in" on several times each day!

I always admired Hallmark's ornaments, and even bought some as gifts while in high school, but never got passionate about it because they were expensive! (little did I know when I passed up that awful cute eskimo on the ice cube holding the song book in 1980!!! GRRRR!) I have been seriously collecting since 1991.

I live in a small town where few people collect anything other than empty beer bottles, so I was really longing for "someone" to share my hobby with. I have found great friends here, great company, great information, and great fun. Although I have wanted to attend some of the special events, I have not (yet anyway) had the opportunity. Maybe next time. Thanks, Todd, for making this one of the best parts of my life!

I've been online since 1996, when I first discovered the AOL Hallmark boards. I miss the AOL boards, but I think the YuleLog board is even better. I'm still on AOL by the way, so Howdy to all of you fellow AOL Hallmarkers!!

I really enjoy visiting here at YuleLog! Todd is great to let us all have a place to get together. Thanks to Todd and this BB I have met some wonderful people. I also would not have my own ornament business, because without the YuleLog board I never would have known that there were this many people out there that actually HAD this same addiction as me!!

I have collected since 1979, but really only got addicted about 89! I was definitely a "closet" collector too! Now it is all out there in the open!!

I'm 41 years old, with a very supportive husband and 3 wonderful kids, (one of whom will be graduating HS in the spring with the class of 2001!).

Love ya all!
Linda
PS my first computer was an IBM pcjr that we bought way back in 1986. It came with 64K of ram, no hard disk and a 5 1/4" floppy. I remember for Christmas 86 I asked Santa for a modem and got a 300bps! I thought I was in heaven! Didn't do any Hallmarking way back then, but logged on to many local bulletin boards.

I left a position at a Power & Light company to be a stay-at-home mom. I have NEVER regreted that. Of course I miss the money. I have two sons in elementary school and I volunteer a lot there. I'm pretty active at our church.

I have a dream book in my purse, in each bathroom and a few others stashed here and there. More than once I bought ornaments because of the other Yuleloggers influence on me. There has been several I never liked, but if others start talking about the beauty they find in it.....I'm sold and then I have to have it! I'm 37 years old, married and I love people with a sense of humor!

Well, that's how I got here. Here's a little info about me. I'm 33, bday next month. Married 10 1/2 years to my college sweetheart. Have 1 son, age 3. (named Jacob, obviously!) I have been collecting ornaments since 1990. Raised in Natchez, Mississippi - moved to Houston, Texas when I got married.

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Calico
home.ptd.net/~calico