Taffiles 6

This is Taffiles #6 and an Obsessive Press publication #99. the January 1989 issue of the newsletter of the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund. It comes to you from the now deposed North American administrator, Jeanne Gomoll, whose new address (as of March 1,1989) will be 2825 Union Street, Madison, Wi 53704.1 don't know what our new phone number will be so you' Il just have to call the old number (608-255-9909) after March 1, and find out from the recorded message. However, if your correspondence or phone call concerns TAFF, you shouldn't be writing or calling me anyway, since as noted above, Jam now happily deposed. You should contact the new North American TAFF administrator, that is, Robert Lichtman, whose address is PO Box 30, Glen Ellen, CA 95442. Or, if you live the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, you should address your concerns to Lilian Edwards and/or Christina Lake, who are jointly the European TAFF administrators. Their addresses are: (Lilian) 1 Braehead Road, ThorntonhalL Glasgow, England G74 5AQ, and (Christina) 47 V/essex, Bristol England B57 ODE. Taffiles is generally available to anyone who shows interest in TAFF. Contents are copyright, © 1989 by Jeanne Gomoll. January 19,1989.

Lichtman Will Go To Eastercon

Robert Lichtman won a majority of the 165 votes cast in the 1989 TAFF election and will be the TAFF representative at this year's Eastercon in Jersey, England. Both Luke McGuff and Lichtman achieved the minimum required 20% of both the European and North American ballots. Nevertheless, enough voters put Robert down as their first- place choice, so that only one round of vote counting was necessary. Congratulations, Robert!

	N.A.*	EUROPE*	FOREIGN	TOTAL
LICHTMAN	77	26	6	109
McGUFF	34	10	0	44
HoF	5	5	0	10
OTHER	0	**2	0	2
TOTAL	116	43	6	165

* 20% cutoff points: in North America = 23 votes; in Europe =9.
** Write-in candidates, Oliver North and T.D., the Cyberpunk Teddybear

North American Voters

The following fans voted in the 1989 election. This list includes Australian and New Zealand voters.

Abramowitz, Alyson L.; Ackroyd,Justin; Andruschak, Harry; Austin, Kristi N.; Axler, David M.; Baum, Allen; Beatty, Allan; Beck, Martha; Berry, JohnD.; Blanchard, Linda; Blood, Simba Lee; Bodden, Bill; Bosky, Bernadette; Bowers, Bill; Bowman, Jeanne N.; Brandt, Richard; Bratman, David; Bridges, Dave; Burrows, Allan D.; Busby, Elinor, Busby, F.M.; Cadogan, Allyn; Carr, G. M.; Clark, David W.; Cohen, Eli; Counsil, Wendy; Custis, Scott.

Danielson, Garth; Davis, Grania; Davis, Hal; Demon, Frank; Dobson, Michael; Eklund, Gordon; Ellington, Richard; Emerson, David; Farber, Gary; Feder, Moshe; Fletcher, Kenneth W.; Franson, Donald; Garey, Terry A.; Gerstein, Linda; Gilliland, Alexis A.; Glicksohn, Mike; Goldberg, Seth; Gunderby, Michael A.; Hayden, Patrick Nielsen; Hayden, Teresa Nielsen; Hinz, Colin; Hirsh, Irwin; Hlavaty, Arthur; Hooper, Andrew P.; Howard, Denys; Huntzinger, Lucy; Josenhans, Ken; Kaufman, Jerry; Ketter, Greg; Kiefer, Hope; Kinney, Jay; Koenigsberg, Kim.

Larsen, Peter, Lee, Sharon; Lync; Lynch, Dick; Lynch, Nicki; Manning, Mark; Mattingly, Gary; Mayer, Eric; McAllister, Rich; McConchie, Lyn; Middlemiss, Perry; Miller, Steve; Moffatt, June; Moffatt, Len; Moore, JohnF.; Morris, Christine; Moskowitz, Sam; Mueller, Pat; Murray, Janice; Nassar, Donna; Newall, Clive; Osborne, Elizabeth Ann; Palmer, Jack; Parsons, Spike; Pavlac, Ross; Perry, Tom; Peters, Patty; Porter, Andy; Potter, D.; Prince, Sarah; Quale, Randa; Quale, Thomas; Rest, Neil; Rike, Dave (late ballot); Root, Carrie; Russell, Richard S.

Schaefer, Kate; Schalles, Jeff; Scrivner, Joyce; Shannon, Richard W.; Shaw, Noreen; Shechter, Andi; Shiffman, Stu; Smith, Craig; Smith, Nevenah; Sneary, Rick; Stiles, Elaine; Stiles, Steve; Strecker, Candi; Sullivan, Geri F.; Taral; Thomson, Amy; Tompkins, Suzanne; Trego, Karen; Trend, Gregg T.; Vining, Tami; Warner, Jr., Harry; Weddall, Roger; Westervelt,Brad; White, Donya; Williams, Paul; Winz, Peter; Wooster, Martin Morse; Yalow, Ben.

The following fans or fanzines published and distributed copies of the my TAFF ballot and I thank them for it: (Others may have done so as well, but I received no copies.) John D. Berry, Donald Franson, Mike Gunderloy, Arthur D. Hlavaty, Robert Lichtman, Janice Murray, Thyme, and Brad Westervelt.

The Checks Are In the Mail

Both the auction and the direct sale turned out to be very successful. The auction alone brought in about $1,200 for TAFF; direct sale items sold for a total of $684.

The complete set of Dave Langford's Twll Ddu's was besieged by more bidders (seven in all), not to mention, the most determined bidders of any other catalog item. Bidders raised their bids by phone for Twll Ddu (and other zines) until 11 pm, November 15, deadline night. Gloria Lucia Albasi finally captured the collection with her strategically-timed phone call, for the stunning offer of $75.00. The Twll Ddu set did not turn out to be the most expensive item in the catalog, however. Another complete set -- Janus/Aurora was the priciest. It sold for $85.00 to Caroline Mullan.

A really remarkable percentage of auction items -- S l% -- received bids. 43% of those received multiple bids, although not very many fans used the provided bid cards to raise their bids. (The hottest battles were waged on the last day by phone.) It seems to me that these statistics demonstrate that the minimum bids I set reflected true market value -- if you overlook the mistakes I made in guessing the value of a few items. The statistics also convince me of the efficiency of this particular auction procedure, i.e., only one general mailing, with subsequent bidding conducted on an individual basis (rather than in an open forum with several general mailings).

Why do I think a mail auction works better than auctions conducted at cons? Well for one reason, a total of 29 people submitted bids for items in J.G. Taff's auction (About 40 people purchased things directly through the direct sale section of the catalog). And that's great. On the other hand, these bidders amount to barely 7% of the total number of people (600) who received a copy of J. G. Taff via the mass mailing, and does not even include copies distributed at Nolacon. Because of the huge number of items in the catalog -- over 500 -- postage and printing expenses would have been prohibitively expensive if the auction had been conducted in a public forum in the tradition of Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden's 1986-87 TAFF auction. Instead, I chose to contact bidders individually after the first, October 9, deadline, and sent them a status card for each item on which they had placed bids. On the card they were reminded of their own current bid and also learned the amount and date of the highest bid for that item. They could then return the card and raise their bid. Some did, but most bidding wars broke out only for a relative minority of the offerings.

J.G. Taff is primarily a fanzine catalog and fanzines are what sold best. Perhaps book and magazine collectors glanced at the cartoon pile of fanzines on its cover and assumed they'd find little of interest within its pages. Or perhaps the books and magazines included in J.G. Taff weren't extraordinary enough. Whatever the reason, I sold absolutely no professional SF zines-which surprised me -- and not many books either.

David Langford and the Nielsen Hayden's zines were among the most hotly contested zines. There are a few zines I regret putting in the direct sale section. For example, everyone seemed to want to buy Robert Lichtman's Foggy Day, anything by Avedon Carol, early Loren MacGregor zines, and the cartoonists' Minicon collaboration, Sunday Funnies. Another interesting true fact is that the J.G. Taff auction seems to have exhausted the pocketbooks of the fannish community, since the list of "for sale" items published in Taffiles 5 was entirely ignored.

A complete listing of auction items sold, along with bidders' names, bids placed, and winning bids, has already been sent out to all auction participants who paid the Auction Entry Fee of $1 US/$2 foreign. Anyone who wants a copy of that information sheet, together with a listing of direct sale items which were purchased, may get one from me for the price of $1 US/$2 foreign.

The Bank Account

The TAFF pocketbook is in fairly good shape. Here's what it looks like as of the voting deadline, January 15, 1989. (*) Totals do not include the printing and postage costs for Taffiles 6.

Income
Initial North American TAFF account balance		$4,857.83
Contribution from European TAFF account (JG trip)		225.40
Catalog revenue:		1,870.02
-- Auctions sales, fees	1,197.01
-- Direct sales	684.01
-- Refunds (duplicate orders)	-11.00
Convention Auction Sales		600.45
Donations (with ballots and catalog orders)		1331.02
TAFF ballot fees:		235.00
-- 1988	107.00
-- 1989	128.00
Bank interest payments		246.30
Total income		$9,366.02

Expenses
Bank charges		$59.89
Telephone bill		215.44
Postage		*615.94
Printing: Taffiles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and the J.G. Taff catalog		*705.66
Computer supplies, envelopes		156.01
Trip expenses:		3,847.76
-- J. Gomoll trip expenses	2,501.16
-- Edwards & Lake expenses	1,346.60
Tax on bank deposits		40.13
Total expenses		$5,640.83

Overall Total		$3,725.19

News

I'm moving. Scott and I have bought a house on the politically correct East Side of Madison and will be moved into it by the end of February. The boxes of TAFF inventory got taped up and shipped out of our apartment just in the nick of time before they were lost among the other anonymously taped boxes that will soon stub toes, block the light and generally interfere with traffic around here.

We fervently hope that this move will be the last for Scott and me for a very long time. The fact that our new house is a fairly large one will make any resolutions to that effect easier to keep. And so in an effort to cut costs and Make A Commitment, I am hereby changing my address and letting go of my post office box. As of March 1, 1989 Scott's and my new address will be:

2825 Union Street
Madison, WI 53704

I don't know yet what our new phone number will be, but it will be printed in the next issue of Whimsey, along with some moving stories and maybe even a map of our new house.