A Supply Report From Golden Valley Stamps- Minnesota

I see a lot of chatter about supplies. I'm lucky that one of the suppliers is located in my area. Golden Valley Collectables (Tonka Hobby Supply). They've been in the same place for many years. I recently got a chance to stop in and check and see what was in stock. It's like a stamp supply supermarket. I'm happy to say that there are lots of stamp tongs. Those have been hard to find in recent years but there were plenty. They still have quite a few older White Ace supplements. They have some oddball things like a still wrapped Christmas Seal Album. I don't know much about White Ace, but kind of fun to see them. They have Worldwide Harris Supplements from 2020-2022 there, and US Liberty Album stuff. I didn't look too hard at the Scott Specialty section but they had binders and supplements. I was surprised to see some of the smaller Minkus generic world binders there too with slipcases. They have quite a few of the larger Scott International Binders, lots of the supplements for them too. There are some of those old label packets from part 1 to part ?? They restocked their packets of stamps too. From 100 to 1000 different world and up to 1000 US too. The 1000 count US packet had US stamps at least up to the 2009 Simpsons issue. I hope all stamp suppliers continue to feed us what we are looking for! I would love to visit Subway Stamps someday too.

The photo of the owners/employees reinforces how old this hobby's demographic is and the article is from 2002. 24 years later are these people still alive? Now THAT would be amazing.

Sadly, the first five are no longer with us. Each had extensive knowledge and I miss them. Rossmer V. Olson was an expert in Scandinavia stamps https://www.tributearchive.com/obit...mer-v.-olson He was quite an exhibitor. https://stlouisstampexpo.com/wp-con...ares2007.pdf I saw Bill and Beth Norberg there conducting business as usual last week.

Did you ask them if they had any issues ordering new supplies besides the Scott brand stuff/

As far as I know the physical Subway Stamp Shop is now an indoor storage facility according to Google Maps. They still reply to emails though. Can someone clarify?

angore I didn't think to ask. They seem to get a steady supply from Whitman, not sure about the rest. They do a lot of auctions too as well as supplies. I like that older photo of Subway. I have a very old catalog of theirs from the early 2000s and it was my wish book for many things. I still look though the clearance items...

Golden Valley is a good store. The auctions have a lot of harder to find intermediate material for reasonable prices. I've been buying supplies and participating in auctions here since the 80's. They were named Bel Aire Stamps earlier on. Friendly group.

Bel Aire was a separate shop in Roseville, although Tom Eckers (the main stamp guy) worked in both places. I miss Bel Aire greatly!

Sending best wishes to Bill Norberg.

I'll second that. I hope your recovery goes smoothly Bill. Get well soon.

I've done business with them for a while and have stopped into their store. VREY friendly. My best wishes for Bill, too.

Their backroom with supplements and other supplies is very impressive.