Opening my PO this morn, I found a large manilla envelope with an Indian postmark, I am spinning me thoughts wondering what I would get from India, until I look at the return address, Clark Smith / Steve Album, they are dealers in Santa Rosa and San Rafael, California. I have known them since I was a pup biting cheap coins at shows, Steve Album does Islamic coins mostly, whilst Clark Smith specialises in gold goodies. They have been doing auctions together for a bit, and I bought an Italian lovely in their last published auction.
But they outsourced their catalogue printing and mailing to India. Amazing. I cannot doubt that it is cheaper to print in India, and spend 107 IN Rupees to sent(approximately $3.00) vs. a minimum of $4.95 to send in the USA.
The catalogue definitely has nice materiel in it, nothing I want at the juncture, but it smells like it was printed somewhere like it was. An unusual chemical odour which is probably harmful. Maybe it is a form of population control via odoriferous printed auction catalogues.