February 20, 2014

Friends, Members and Exhibitors,

Our recent January Arms Fair at the Saratoga City Center was definitely a great show; it is now rivaling our March event, which is coming in just a few short weeks. I heard no complaints from any of our exhibitors about their sales at the show. Our attendance exceeded 3000 and included buyers, not just "lookers".

I personally had a great selling and buying event and I hope all of you did as well. With my high prices I figure I just "soften up" your customers as they make their way around the room. Incidentally, it doesn’t really matter where you are set up at Saratoga – all of the tables get viewed, especially when we have our two doors open to take care of the long lines. Folks travel down the aisles of both ends and the middle when they come in, I’ve watched them – there is no real traffic pattern!   Don’t worry about jockeying for position within the show – as a matter of fact, I see a lot of people head for the bathrooms on the far wall as soon as they come through one of the front entrances. From there, who knows?

For Saratoga we have our March 15, 16 show coming up and we have a flier enclosed. We are about half sold out with deposits and a lot of promises so get your applications in as soon as you can if you want space at our show. There are only 4 or 5 wall tables left. I know we will have a great crowd of buyers for our March event. Our date for the summer show is August 23 & 24 so make your reservations for hotels as soon as possible – you all know Saratoga gets full and expensive during the Racing season.

As you all know, this winter weather has been horrendous but we usually have a fairly nice weekend for our March show. I’m writing this letter as I’m looking outside at 6 foot or higher piles of snow; man, just like the old days! I’d go out and build a snow man but the damn snow is way too dry, easy to shovel though. Speaking of which, I can’t remember when I’ve shoveled as much as this year.

Not only snow but the cold! I run through about 300 gallons of oil every week or so at the shop – at more or less $4.00 a gallon. I can see why a lot of people simply don’t have the extra cash to buy anything but necessities. Good for us, a lot of folks think guns and ammo are becoming more necessary every week. Perhaps all are readying for the Revolution.

All our economy needs is for the folks to have more cash to spend; the easy way is to have lower taxes. My granddaughter just had to pay over $100 in taxes on a little over $2000 in 2013 wages. As a full time student living at home, it should have been zero! Where is the incentive to work?

Of course if we can produce more oil, which we are, and refine it here, oil prices for Americans could go down. If oil producers are required to sell oil in the US at $1.00 per gallon – as it should be, or less – that would free up an awful lot of expendable consumer cash. Our oil should only be for export after we use our fill. Venezuelans and Iranians pay under 50 cents a gallon; I’m willing to give the oil barons twice that but only export oil after we get what we need. Our economy can be fixed if the policy makers want to fix it. Expansion and new jobs would be right around that illusive corner if they only took some initiative.

Now, while I’m on that subject of initiative, we here at NEACA and C & D Petronis, Inc. are always exploring new ideas or projects and we are working on a few right now. When the time is appropriate we will always inform the membership first, generally by our website at NEACA.com and then by mail. If you haven’t visited our site you have been missing some info and also our extensive sale pages of merchandise. If any of you have ideas that you would like to share, we are here to listen. If you have a good location for a new show, either in or out of NY State, we are here to consider it. Call us at 518-664-9743.

One reminder at this point; our shows are for the membership to enjoy and participate in. Even if you as an individual want to take a table as an occasional occurrence, once or twice a year, like a garage sale, we do not require a sales tax number for NEACA Members on that basis. If you are engaged "in the business", as they say, then we do. Our shows are a great place to move some of that unwanted or no longer needed stuff! As we say in our commercials, "Check your garage, attic and cluttered closets for any and all outdoor sporting equipment, vintage fishing or hunting items and any old military souvenirs and bring them to our show!"

As for other events this year we are working on a Lake George Forum contract for May 17 & 18, same time as last year. We’ve had many inquiries about this show from attendees and exhibitors and are trying very hard to get this together; keep that date open.

Also, we have our normal date for Old Forge on August 2 & 3 so get your motel reservations in early; this is the weekend right after their annual antique show. We are considering Utica in their only available time period, June, however rent has increased considerably as well as all their other expenses; at this point we simply don’t know. We are pursuing the Herkimer, Frankfort area for a show as well as Watertown, probably in August. Know that we are always working on things that will be enjoyable and profitable for our members.

Thanks again for all your continued support, Cathy & Dave Petronis.