About Americana Resources

Americana Resources, Inc is an antiques and collectibles corporation headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, just north of Washington, DC.

The 18-year-old company has a diversified experience in the antiques and collectibles industry. Over the years the company has marketed nearly 60 printed sales catalogs and has conducted mail, phone and "live" auctions. For the past decade Americana Resources has had shops in antique malls in Maryland and Pennsylvania. In addition to our fixed-price website, we also have space in the Emmitsburg Antique Mall in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Americana Resources also participates in several shows a year. Over the years, we have done shows in Las Vegas, Louisville, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Hagerstown, Hartford, Albany, Orlando and Atlanta. We operated our own antiques & collectibles show at the Gaithersburg Hilton in 1994 with dealers from over 10 states represented. We have offered specialty sales at our warehouse in Gaithersburg featuring everything from antique lighting to art glass, from country primitives and furniture to advertising memorabilia.

We launched our website, AmRes.com, in 1995 as one of the first websites on the Internet featuring antiques & collectibles. This fixed price site has grown steadily to its present offering of over 40,000 items, becoming one of the largest independent sites in the industry.

Although our inventory features a wide range of collectibles, we enjoy specializing in the 'unique and unusual'. We know, this is easy to say and many shops are saying this is their specialty. But we do like to think this is one of the areas for which people know us. We cannot compete with the big auction houses which get absolutely fantastic items to sell on a regular basis, however, we are indeed, always on the lookout for items you don't see every day.

What are some of the items we have or have had over the years? Architectural pieces of the White House, Sheriff Pat Garrett's derringer (the man who shot Billy the Kid), Lou Gehrig's baseball cap, John Kennedy's pajamas and the roses Jackie was carrying in the limo in Dallas, Ringling Bros. circus wagon wheels, chairs from John Quincy Adams' family, pieces from Old Ironsides and the luxury liner Queen Mary, gun from Dillinger's gang, Lincoln items from the Hanks family (Lincoln's mother), a whole collection from Helen Hayes' estate, complete burlesque wardrobe, a 45-lb cut glass palace vase, Civil War Confederate soldier's wooden leg and so on.

Visitors to our website, or to the warehouse, always comment on the eclectic inventory of Americana Resources. Not only do our inventory areas have great variety--political, paper ephemera, art glass, Star Trek, advertising, country primitives, to name a few--but other areas are well covered in great numbers. Militaria, dairy items, books, celebrities, Disney, toys and childrens' books, World's Fair, western, tobacco related, sewing items, collector plates, railroadiana, breweriana, barber items, calendar plates, banks, bells, campaign buttons, catalogs, drug store & country store, figural bottles, sheet music, magazines, sports memorabilia, photography, health & Red Cross items, lamps & lighting, labor related, newspaper headlines, piano rolls, music, religious items, recipe books, farming, stamps and first day covers, automobile items & license plates, records, saloon and bar collectibles, social issues, black collectibles, holiday ornaments & items, textiles & needlework, postcards, Abraham Lincoln, Americana patriotic, space exploration and aviation and much more.

Internet Services

While Americana Resources, Inc is a very small company comprised solely of partners Larry Krug and Rick Moses, we have always felt we could have a role in the innovative shaping of the antiques & collectibles industry.

A decade ago there was very little industry-wide dialogue on major challenges and opportunities in this rapidly changing industry.

We have traditionally been great believers in the values of education in our complex industry. Whether a dealer or a collector -- we are both -- success and pleasure are more apt to come to those who keep up-to-date with the trends, values and markets. We have always supported collecting organizations, believing that the strength of any given collecting area is directly proportionate to the strength of the organization or organizations which support that collecting area.

During the past five years Americana Resources has become a leading supporter of developing websites for organizations and strengthening a number of clubs and societies and associations in a variety of ways.

We initially developed, and for several years operated, the website serving the largest trade associations in our industry -- Antiques & Collectibles Dealer Association (ACDA), Antiques & Collectibles Show Promoters Association (ACSPA), National Association of Antique Malls (NAAM).

In 1995, Americana Resources created Collectors.Org, the website for collecting clubs and collectors. Collectors.Org was selected in 1996 to be the official website for the National Association of Collectors. Americana Resources acquired the National Association of Collectors (NAC) in 2002. Shortly thereafter, we founded a companion organization called the Association of Collecting Clubs (ACC) designed to work with the operation and management of collecting groups. The Collectors.Org website is the official website for both the NAC and ACC.

Since it's inception, the Collectors.Org site has become one of the most expansive information sites serving our industry. Our Flea Market Directory is the largest on the Internet. The Events Schedule features workshops, seminars, conventions, exhibitions, lectures, auctions and tours, also updated weekly. The Auctioneers Directory, Industry News, Appraisals Section and Restoration Section are all noteworthy. The Club Directory, consisting of over 2,500 clubs, is the largest on the Internet. Visit: http://collectors.org.

Strong collecting organizations mean stronger, healthier hobby areas and more satisfied collectors. It also is a vital ingredient in strengthening the entire antiques & collectibles industry. Thus, as we stated in the beginning of this section, although small, we feel Americana Resources has an active role in helping to shape our industry.

About Our 'Staff'

Larry L. Krug, President.

Larry Krug, founder and president of Americana Resources, Inc. grew up on a farm in rural Rockford, Illinois. One of the businesses in which his parents were involved was Krugs Antiques, a large antiques operation which they ran for 50 years. Larry, like his parents, became a collector at an early age, an experience (or habit) which has continued throughout life.

Graduating with degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Larry was a high school teacher at the age of 22, a film producer while on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, and producer/host of a syndicated (80 station) radio show as a faculty member at the University of Tennessee. During this period he was a stringer for several of the major daily newspapers in Milwaukee & Madison, Wisconsin and Nashville, Tennessee. He also served in the U.S. Army in Germany for two years as a tank commander, information specialist for the 8th Infantry Division and a correspondent for Stars & Stripes newspaper.

At the age of 28 Larry joined the national staff of the National 4-H Council, headquartered first in Chicago, then in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just north of Washington, DC. His responsibilities over the next 25 years included marketing and promotion of educational projects with a wide spectrum of federal governmental agencies and projects designed and funded directly with over 100 of the Fortune 500 companies. He helped direct television series with the Department of Defense, NASA, Eastman Kodak Company and General Foods Corporation. Larry directed the writing, production and sales of over 500 books and manuals, one of them topping 7 million in circulation. He was executive editor of the national monthly magazine and director of the Communications Division.

A strong environmentalist, Larry helped develop Earth Day, and while living in the Chicago area, he was on the Mayor's first appointed Environmental Control Board. Mandatory curbside pickup of recycled products, a fully staffed recycling center and a strong noise abatement ordinance made the board a national model.

Larry was married (now a widower) and has three grown sons. He started Americana Resources, Inc. nearly 15 years ago, starting first as a catalog sales operation. He is an avid collector, from apple green Thousand Eye pattern glass and Royal Copenhagen china to Occupied Germany items and country primitives. One of his largest collections, perhaps the most comprehensive collection of its type in private hands, is a collection on President Calvin Coolidge. Larry has been a member of the American Political Items Collectors for over 35 years, serving as President of the 3,000-member organization between 1972-1976. It was during these years that the APIC pushed the Hobby Protection Act through Congress and into law. Larry has served as Executive Director, Marketing & Membership for APIC for the past 10 years.

Over the years, Larry has belonged to over 20 different collecting clubs and is a co-founder of the Calendar Collector Society. He enjoys exploring family genealogy and has published three books on branches of his own family, with one more in the process, plus an additional history book documenting the Coolidge-Dawes Lincoln Tour of 1924, a cross-country, 60-day `road rally' involving 100,000 automobiles in one of the most spectacular political campaign projects in history.

Richard W. Moses, Vice President.

A relative new-comer to the anitques and collectibles industry, Rick has wasted little time getting involved in all aspects of the industry. Rick has been with Americana Resources, Inc since 1992. His initial involvement was as a photographer for print catalogs. That quickly changed as he became more familiar with the business.

Rick grew up in the steel town of McKeesport, PA and graduated from McKessport Area Senior High. Rick's first 'real' job was as a computer programmer/analyst with Highway Equipment Company in bustling Zelienople, PA. This proved to be an excellent learning ground for Rick. Not only was he able to expand his skills as a programmer, he also learned about systems design while implementing an on-line, real-time inventory control system that operated between 5 warehouses in 2 states... all over 'high speed' phone lines that ran at a blistering 4800 and 9600 'baud'. Rick was also exposed to the fine art of screen and forms design as he rapidly took over the tasks of system maintenance, interface designs, paper and microform reporting.

After several years at Highway, including working as an evening instructor in programming for the local community college, Rick moved on to Westinghouse Electric as a graphics designer and FORTRAN programmer. At Westinghouse, Rick was responsible for creating the background images used in 'state of the art' monitoring systems for live nuclear reactors. During this time, Rick became involved with a number of special projects, including the introduction of local area networks (LANs) to Westinghouse and the design and implementation of a cross platform development system between UNIX and Gould S.E.L's MPX environments. However, it was the LAN experience that really took off. Before long, Rick had the task of managing all data communications into and out of the facility in which he worked.

During this time, Rick also managed to take up skydiving and earn his Master's license, JumpMaster rating and Instructor's rating. This is odd in itself as people ask "why jump from a perfectly good airplane?' It takes on a special meaning when Rick confesses that he has this thing about heights, as in "He's afraid of heights"! Rick is also quick to add that at 15,000 feet, your mind is on other things as you plummet 120+ MPH toward the ground.

Between 1992 and 2001, Rick worked at Intelsat Global Services Corporation located in Washington, DC. Intelsat owns and operates a fleet of satellites that carry voice, video, data and Internet traffic all over the world. Intelsat began in the 1960's as an international treaty organization with the goal of providing modern communications capabilities to all countries, regardless of political affiliations. Intelsat converted from a treaty organization to a private company in July of 2001. Rick's last position at Intelsat was Manager, Desktop & Intranet Applications Services, which maintained the corporate intranet and assisted users in the operation of off-the-shelf software such as Microsoft Office and Adobe products.

Prior to joining Americana Resources, Inc, Rick didn't get too involved with collecting, other than his collection of limited-edition crystal sculpture. Since then, he has expanded his collections to include Star Trek, political Americana and transparent cloissone.

At Americana Resources, Inc, Rick has responsibility for all technology-related subjects. This includes not only the hardware and software used in the office, but also dealing with ISPs, telecomm companies and suppliers. He is also the one that takes care of re-wiring any lighting fixtures before they are sold (Larry isn't allowed to do this anymore after that incident with the blown-out wall outlet) and has the 'minor' task of doing all of the site layout, design and programming for the 48 domains owned and/or operated by Americana Resources, Inc.