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Here are the folks we've done business with for many years, some as long as 40 years, and they've been steady, reliable, reasonable, friendly and caring. (This is an unpaid testimonial). These companies have helped us maintain the quality we insist on.
- Our instruction books, catalogs, and business cards are printed by Chuck's Printing, 1110 Crain Hwy., SW, Glen Burnie, MD 21061. We were one of their first customers when Chuck bought the shop around 1980. We are immensely saddened that he passed away in December 2021 and are very grateful that his son Don runs it now. Their phone is 410-760-6072; fax 410-761-7942.
- Some of our acrylic sheets come from Laird Plastics. We also have the great services of Bob McVicker at Piedmont Plastics, and Dean at Sabic Polymershapes, scouring the country to find us the beautiful colors we need. Novelty colors and textures come from Galaxy Plastics.
- Some of our gameboards are screen-printed on wood or canvas by the experts at Whithner Corporation, 9351 Philadelphia Rd, Suite A-B, Baltimore, MD 21237. It's a family operation with an old-fashioned sense of perfectionism. Our contact is Jessie Whippo, by email or phone 410-391-8781.
- Many of our games have custom boxes, covered in white, black alligator or brown leather finishes, made by Prestar Packaging, Inc., in Virginia. They inherited us from our previous supplier, whom they bought out and who had inherited us from a previous acquisition, who had got us from an earlier box company...
- Our vinyls, and the fine upholstery velvet for our game bags, come from Douglass Industries, Inc., 412 Boston Ave., Egg Harbor City, NJ 08215, phone 609-965-6030. They were founded in 1954, and we've been their customer for 40 of those years. Their Maryland area rep, Ed Cleckner (703-989-2685), is always willing to go the extra distance to find us the right stuff at a good price. They sell "to the trade only"—shops, manufacturers.
- Our lumber supplier since our beginnings had been Padgett Manufacturing in Bridgewater, VA. They understood our need for good, clean-grained maple and our insistence on consistent thicknesses, and gave us great service for over 30 years. Sadly, they are out of business. In 2015 we found an enterprising local company that does custom work with solid wood:
OE Custom, owned by Paul Timmins and John Ferrara in Arbutus, MD. Email them if you need interesting custom wood projects made.
- Hardware of all sorts, from bolts to brackets, handles to feet, fasteners to screws, we get from a venerable family enterprise (since 1923), J. G. Edelen Company, whom we've seen grow from a smallish hardware store to a huge, immaculately managed warehouse at 8901 Kelso Drive, Baltimore, MD 21221. The president is Jim Edelen, II, whose blue eyes and warm smile probably account for the great morale throughout the place. Their phone is 410-918-1200.
- The flattened, gem-like marbles we use in several of our games come from The Marbleman, headquartered in Virginia. Jack and Sue Hahn also make handcrafted wood gameboards played with their marbles, and they're frequently fellow exhibitors in shows we do. Their marble factory has every size and color of marble you can imagine. And their gameboards are tie-dyed, a dazzling sight.
- We buy the various plastic and wood dice for several of our games from Jim Koplow at Koplow Games, based in Boston. Jim's a great guy, and no one knows the game industry better than he, nor has more dice. He carries tiny little miniature dice by the handful in his pockets and leaves them as little surprises in unexpected places. His phone is 800-899-0711; fax 617-482-DICE. Their sales department (to the trade only) is always open, even when Jim is away, manning the booth at Origins, GenCon, WorldCon or other mega-gaming events.
- Metallic-look nameplates for some of our elegant gameboards and for the wicked Warp-30 puzzle are engraved for us by Perma-Craft Signs, at 1644 S. Ridgewood Ave., So. Daytona, FL 32119. Their phone is 904-767-8011; fax 904-767-8246. Hey, and they also made the big, bright turquoise and white magnetic signs for the Kadon van, spelling out our website address. So how come they're not in the Baltimore area? Because we hang out in Florida, too — in winter!
- And finally, to get those games through the mail, we ship in cartons and packing material procured from ABC Box Co. on Leadenhall St. in Baltimore, MD 21230. They have clean, second-hand boxes at low prices, in a zillion sizes for any need, and our man on the spot, Maury Lerner, who is a comedy writer in his secret life, has them all memorized. ABC occupies one of the grand old buildings in Camden Industrial Park, originally a truck repair shop with huge vaulted ceilings black with age, labyrinthine passages everywhere, and tons of cartons piled and stacked in a monument to organized chaos. ABC is a relic of the past, and they always answer the phone: 410-752-4535.
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