Michel Sells PDFs Of Individual Countries On A USB Stick.

http://www.briefmarken.de/michelsho...der-kataloge

I hope at some point they make them available for sale as downloads.

Soon as they update the USB stick to for Ukraine to be 2014/2015, I'll be placing my order.

As Michel's online shop does not sell to Americans, directing us to the US Distibutor, Linder USA - http://www.lindner-usa.com/, who does not list these on their website, does anyone know where someone in the US can purchase one?

Hmmm....

Need a European proxy that we can ship these to and then have them put the file on Dropbox or something.

Apastuszak,

I'm willing to help re Proxying/Dropbox.
Let me know if you want to pursue this route.

These appeal, but my German is not yet good enough to buy. Still, one day.

Terry

apastuszak,

It's not as quick as finding someone to upload to Dropbox, but for my Michel purchases, I usually use Werner Zielniewicz. He speaks English, ships quickly, and will special order anything you need from Michel.

I shot Herr Zienlniewicz an email. We'll see what he says.

ClassicalStamps,

I'd love to go that route, but I need the USB to be updated with the 2015 version of OstEuropa. The other issue is that the PDF on the USB stick is watermarked. I believe I would need to Paypal you money and then have you place the order in your name. The end PDF I get will have your name watermarked on it. If you're OK with that, I'm OK with that.

apastuszak,

No problem. Let me know if/when.

Andy - AFAIK Michel will start providing country specific PDF's as downloadable files in (near) future. The feature was suggested in Michel Forums, and they were very positive with it.

-k-

"Michel will start providing country specific PDF's as downloadable files in (near) future"

I wonder when Scott will join the 20th Century (never mind the 21st) and do the same. If they would sell individual countries as PDFs starting at, say, $10 or so, buying them almost becomes an impulse buy. Instead of me buying 1-2 year old used catalogs and getting nothing from me directly, they'd be getting a fair amount of business from me. I'm not privy to all their sales information and market research that they use for product development and pricing, but looking from the outside in, I'd guess that PDF sales would mostly supplement their print catalog sales, not cannibalize them. However, I guarantee the cannibalization possibility weighs on them. If print sales drop too much, their printing costs per volume would likely increase and they don't want to alienate the print buyers. But again, using myself as an example, I may never buy a brand-new, current edition directly from Amos. But if they sold country PDFs for $10-$20, I'm basically certain that they'd get some business from me.

A Michel representative has stated on their forum that they are open for all suggestions/improvements of digital products except for removal of 'soft DRM' and and pricing (which runs from 5€ to 40€ per country specific pdf-file/USB stick). So it's very unlikely that at least Michel would provide them any cheaper than currently.

A much more interesting question is what the second hand market for these will be alike? I would think there's some sort of EULA (End User Licence Agreement) in the USB-stick prohibiting the sale and redistribution of it. Andy - when/if you receive your stick, would you bother to check?

-k-

Well, since the PDF is watermarked with your name on each page, and the first page is supposed to be personalized with your info on it, I would tend to think it would be impossible to resell them. The resale of any digital content is almost non-existent.

A Google Translate of the top of the MICHEL page:

"MICHEL-country catalogs on a USB data stick are excerpts from the current catalogs Germany, Europe and overseas as a PDF. The content of the regions corresponds exactly to the current catalogs. Areas can only fully ordered and price quotations are not altered and pictures are sorted by catalog b / w or color.

All PDF are provided on each side with a personal dedication and a digital watermark (steganogram). The PDF can be read any stored and on all types of devices with the Acrobat Reader from V.4"

If I was MICHEL I would put the purchasers name in the corner of each page and the first page would say

"This Catalog was purchased by:

Name
Address
Phone Number

On
Date

Order Number"

Just wanted to give some more props to Werner. I ordered the Michel 2015 Europa-CEPT catalog from him yesterday. He answered my emails promptly and was a pleasure to deal with. I am planning on ordering some Lighthouse album pages from him as well. Highly recommended.