History of the ABC

The idea to begin an Independent Club for collectors of Adam Binder's work occurred to me in the spring of 2002, while I was attending the Canadian Collectibles Show in Kitchener, Canada. I saw at least ten other collectors I recognized from the Independent Harmony Kingdom Club I belong to at that time, all standing in Adam's signing line! It appeared that we had a core of Binder collectors from Michigan already, and they were all open to the idea of forming an independent Club. I also talked with several other collectors from other areas of the country that day who enjoyed Adam's work and I gathered up a few more email addresses. My goal was to use the internet and email for what it does best - disseminate information quickly!

A few of us decided to get together informally at the Rosemont IGCE Show in June, 2002, and over dinner we talked about starting up the Club. I asked Adam's permission to launch a Club, not having a clue of what I was actually getting myself into. Adam gave us his permission to start the first Adam Binder Independent Collectors Club. At Rosemont, it was decided to begin a "virtual" Club. There would be little or no expenses this way, and so we would not have to charge high membership fees. In fact, to begin with, we would charge no fees at all! By the time of our Rosemont meeting, we had already had two offers from stores to sponsor our Club, and we were off and running.

When I returned home, I put up a post on the MSN Binder Board announcing the start of the Club, and have been receiving requests to join ever since! At the time of this writing, there are over 200 members and ten sponsor stores that have joined the Club!

Our first decision was what to call our Club. Several names were suggested and we held an email ballot. . The name chosen was The Adam Binder Club, or the ABC for short! My original thought was to provide a sort of "round robin" where any collector or dealer could email all Club members with information, but what actually came to pass was that people emailed me the information and I then fanned it out to the ABC. Today, the information arrives in many forms, from Adam and his manager, Lueze, from ABE dealers, from magazine articles featuring Adam and ABE, from other collectors and the MSN Binder board and Let's Play ABE board managers.

In the course of adding collectors to our growing ABC email list, one collector, Anna, offered to set up a website in partnership with the ABC, donating her time and talents to do so. She also designed the ABC logo based on Adam's first membership piece, New Dawn, and Adam and Lueze approved of us using the logo. The design became an instant success on the Binder Board, and many collectors wanted to have patches and/or pins with the design. We quickly discovered that even a "virtual" Club had expenses! Adam helped us out tremendously by donating three Artist Copies ABE pieces for us to raffle. But we soon realized that it would be prudent to charge dues to cover our expenses. In the first year that dues were charged, members received an ABC patch and pin as membership gifts! We then held a "live" meeting of the ABC at the Rosemont 2003 IGCE Show. We started planning for the meeting six months in advance when we had about 80 members. Little did we know how fast the ABC would grow! We had a sold out crowd of 120 people at the dinner and everyone who came seemed to have a good time. The dinner meeting was made extra special for all of us when Adam, Lueze and Claire were able to join us! Unfortunately, Lisa missed the dinner to care for their dog, Tree, who had just had emergency surgery. Adam also surprised us all by donating ivory Love Bugs to the ABC for the dinner meeting! Every Club member at the dinner got to take home one of his special variation beetles, as well as an ABC Rosemont 2003 button and water bottle. (After trying to fit all of those water bottles in my little car, I think when we do this again, we will pick a smaller memento...!)

For those of you who have been following the ABC from the beginning, you know that we have had many website contests and we plan on more to come! ABE has continued to support the Club and donated to the ABC one of the tiles that made up the countertop at his booth at the Rosemont 2003 IGCE. Thanks to the generosity of ABE, all of the proceeds from the raffling of this tile of ivory frogs was donated to the designated Club Charities.

More recently, ABE has made an exclusive piece, just for our Club, the "Gliding Frog". But you have to be a member of the ABC to participate in our activities, so what are you waiting for? Join today! Just click on the link "Join ABC"! ~ Dolores