Honorplace.com

Here's a press release about a very cool new site for Veterans, I've also linked to it on the right side of the page . . .

Incorporating rich graphics and animation to honor the service of our military veterans, Honorplace.com delivers an engaging interactive experience to viewers.

The site's unique interface allows veterans and family members to celebrate personal military experiences by associating, stories, photos, and duty assignments with each medal and ribbon awarded. This allows veterans to preserve "their stories" as a part of history in a customizable on-line shadowbox that can be shared with family, friends and visitors to the website.

"I first got the idea for building this website about eight years ago," says former Navy submariner, Jeb Cariker. "After my grandfather died, my mother found his military medals, ribbons, and badges in the bottom of a box. She rescued the awards and had them mounted in a handsome display case."

"Although his shadowbox looked great, no one really knew what the medals and ribbons represented. I then realized that the human connection between my grandfather's personal journey in the Coast Guard and his awards had been lost." Cariker says that Honorplace.com bridges the gap between a veteran's physical awards and the service and sacrifice that they represent. By simply clicking on any award, badge or duty station, the viewer can learn more about the veteran's career.

The free site also has a "buddy feature" which allows veterans to socialize with others by adding them to their shadowbox buddy lists. Built in search capabilities make it easy to find friends by service or specialty. "I feel like this is the next step in personalization. With the ability to drag awards for a custom layout and select from a variety of shadowbox themes, Honorplace.com is designed to make every veteran feel like he has a custom built showcase," says Cariker.

Jeb Cariker is an eleven year veteran of the U.S. Navy and is founder of Honorplace.com. He has spent the last twelve years innovating rich media applications for the web. As an advocate for those who serve, he is proud to bring this experience to Honorplace.com.

For information:
www.honorplace.com

Carts of collectibles

"I'm back" are probably the two most typed words in the blogosphere. Well, I am - and I apologize for my intermittent postings, but things have been so busy at the ol' auction house the poor blog was not exactly at the top of the list. Again, we have more consignment than ever and we're working hard to get in the system and out the door.

For those of you who have paid a visit to our facility, you are familiar with the 8 x 10' wooden shelves which are the pillar of our operation. Right now we have 10 of them filled to the brim and ready to go into the photography department - where there are another three or four. It's kind of difficult to get an idea of our operation from the outside, so I've posted a couple of pictures below - mainly focusing on the carts and photography department (with a pic of our two hardest workers thrown in).

























































Don't forget, our November Military Trader Special Auction closes this evening at 8:30 p.m. CST. There are some AMAZING items available - as seen in the latest issue of the Military Trader magazine. Also, we posted a new special Visor Cap auction which will close on December 21. It will feature about 200 different visor caps from around the world, and new items will be added daily for several days to come. Our third Harry Block historic aviation collection closes on December 2 - click here to find out more. Also, our NEW 2007-2008 WWII German Collectibles Realized price guide is now available. It's our first publication in quite some time - click here to order your copy now.

Also, check out this fantastic militaria collecting website - www.militarialinks.com. It's an excellent service to the collecting community!

West Coast Militaria Show

Greetings Militaria collectors and military history enthusiasts!

We've returned from another trip out into the "field" - this time it was the West Coast Historical Militaria Collectors Show in Pomona, California. Like I mentioned in previous posts, this is one of the best shows in the country, very well run and always a pleasure to attend.

I took several pictures at the event this year and I've posted a bunch of them, and I imagine it is going to take up a bit of this front page, so if you're looking for a specific post from the past, please utilize the menu on the right side of the page.

At any rate, the show was another good one - tons of great military related collectibles from many different eras and countries. The special guests were two gentlemen who were in Navy Service during WWII and stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7th. It was truly an honor to meet them, and hear their stories. They had an excellent Pearl Harbor WWII history book available - A Warrior For Freedom. If anyone has a link to their actual organization, please let me know so I can post a link.

There is also a dealer who always sets up at this show who brings a wide selection of meteorites. Not military, yes I know, but very cool and incredibly valuable. It is not often, outside of a museum (or a gem and mineral show, I suppose), one gets a chance to see so many examples up close and personal.















This year the show was held on Halloween, making for an excellent costume contest (you'll see the pics below). Again, if you haven't been to this show, and can make the trip next year - May 9-10, 2009 - it would definitely be worth your while, as a buyer or dealer.

Back on the home front, we have so much consignment coming in. HughMills is driving in with another load, and we just received a ton more from the Harry Block collection, as well as several other large consignments. Stay tuned to Manion's Collecting News for upcoming photos and additional details.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the pics!