Diary - Archive 2002

1000th Label

December 31, 2002. Shortly before the end of the year I am very pleased to announce you that I got my 1000th label from Friedrich-W. Kunze of Mölln.
The 1000th label also was the occasion for the design of a jubilee edition of La Banana labels. The idea for the concept of the series gave a postcard from Friedrich with the freighter "Hornbay" as its subject.

Without ships the banana had never reached such a wide public as today. First with the introduction of the refrigerator ship, in the beginning of the 20th century, bananas could be shipped from Central- or South America without a large loss. In the info-section of La Banana you will find now also a little history of banana transports.
The jubilee series contains 12 labels with civil Sailing ships and steamers from different periods.

I wish you a happy new year.
 

Trader Sheets updated

December 27, 2002. Unfortunately - because of the preparations for christmas - I havn't found any time to scan all my new labels. But instead of it you will get an update of the Trader Sheets with many new traders. Have a look a it - perhaps you will find something to complete your collection.
At present my collection covers 995 Labels. The countdown for No. 1000 is running :-)
 

900th Label

November 18, 2002. The last entry in this diary is now one and a half month ago, so it is time to go on. But not to write doesn't means that my collection isn't growing. Quite the reverse the collection was growing considerable and so my new trading partner Martin Pluhar was able to contribute the 900th label on November 9. I would have never expected to get so many labels this year. Also the 1000th label is set out on the way to me.

New collectors from England

At this point it's my pleasure to introduce you to two new collectors:
Joan und Keith Buckle from West Midlands, England who had contributed 26 new labels to my collection! They have no website, but you can contact them at the following E-Mail address:
 
   joan@joanbuckle.freeserve.co.uk
 
I'm sure Joan an Keith will be very pleased to hear from you all.

Labels from Belbana and Dole

Many thanks to Belbana in Belgium, In the end of September they had kindly gave some of their labels to me.
Also many thanks to Karin Eberle and Christian Emus From Dole Fresh Fruit Europe Ltd. & Co. for the new Dole Click & Win promo labels. I was very glad about that.

Traders updated

Of course I had also updated my traders. Have a look on the traders page where you will find 30 new traders.
At present my collection covers 915 Labels.
 

Fruit labels for trading

September 29, 2002. In the traders section you will find now 2 sheets with fruit labels. For myself I'm not a collector of fruit labels but a have a couple of them for trading against banana labels.
Please have a look, if you are a collector of other fruit labels.

Although there are 4 more new La Banana labels with pictures from our budgies. You can see the complete series by the other La Banana Labels.

Today my collection contains 830 labels.
 

800th Label

September 10, 2002. This month trading starts with Ian Warren, Xavier Heyte, Gerri Lorenzo, Klement Cepon and Günther Hofmair.
New trading partners are Osku Asikainen from Finland and Saunders Pinckard from the USA. Osku also contributes the 800th label, the french Dole Promo on the right.
At the 3rd of September surprisingly a letter from Fyffes arrived. They sent me - without a request of mine - for the second time a lot of labels. Thank you so very much - I owe you!
Also there are 2 new La Banana labels. A "Thank you label" for Finland and by the suggestion of Xavier a belgian with "Merci".

Within August Joan Weinmayr extended my collection with 10 new labels, what makes me very happy. Trading with Xavier Heyte, Becky Martz and Klement Cepon also let the collection grow.
 

New Traders

August 5, 2002. With all the "unscanned" labels, many new traders and new labels from you friends, there was to clear a big backlog. I had to scan 65 label! But now this work is done and here is the update with many new traders.

Well, now I have to credit Peter Birkendahl from co op Schleswig-Holstein e.G.. Because of my inquiry (which he responds very kindly), he obtained some different labels for me, amongst them 3 new ones and an original Chiquita sheet (with LBLC #0291).
So a heartfelt thank you goes to Peter Birkendahl. As stated before, most company don't respond on collectors inquiries.
My collection has growed to 751 labels.
 

Back from our vacation

July 22, 2002. Only one new label was found at our vacation, the Creolita Ecuador (LBLC #0737), but therefore many new traders were added. Letters came from Alfer, Shirley Wolfe, Chris Crowcour and Joan Weinmayr. Chris and Joan sent me some labels just for free. Many Thanks to them. Some day I will reciprocate your kindness.
 

700th Label

June 21, 2002. This month I got many new labels, among others from Jochen Ebert, Ian Warren and Xavier Heyte. Within Xaviers 11 new labels was my 700th label, the red Onkel Tuca Costa Rica.
Gerri Lorenzo completes the collection with 12 labels. Many Thanks!

A short time before we went on our vacation, a letter from Melissa's arrived. Two new labels for the collection, two for the traders.
From Pavel Pech added 10 new labels. There were so many labels, so I couldn't scan them all before our departure.
 

New Label?

May 30, 2002. This NaNina sticker shows my niece Nina Göller. Her Daddy designed this private "promo label" especially for La Banana.

Emerson Nichols from the USA and Peter Niessen from Spain are new trading partners. This time, more new labels are from Elvis Velez und Becky Martz and others.

Very special thanks goes to Uniban, the leading columbian banana and plantain exporter. Also, they are producing self adhesive labels and stickers for the banana industry. They sent me many labels from different companies. Not least owing to Uniban the collection contains 688 labels.

Thanks for your mails about the asian label with the red characters. It is the Great Emperor, an ecuadorian label used for bananas exported to China. Many thanks to all of you.
 

Do you know this Label?

May 12, 2002. From Bill Wykle I got this yellow label with red asian characters, perhaps from China or Taiwan. Who knows any details about it? Which brand is it? What's the meaning of the characters? From which country does it come? I will be thankful for all of your hints.

In the meantime, my collection now consists of 661 labels. The new labels are from Klement Cepon, Michael Ebnet-Feit, Xavier Heyte, Bill Wykle and Fran Wolotko. Thank you very much for the trades!

NEW! For those who have a Highspeed-Internet connection, the traders are now available on only 3 separate sheets in the traders section. Every sheet has an aproximate size of 180 kB.
 

600th Label

April 24, 2002. Hurrah!!! Now I have 600 labels. Britta Helfrich and her friends spent their holidays in the Fyffes-country Ireland. She brought back nearly 50 labels, five of them are new for my collection - including No. 600, the Banarica Costa Rica. All the others are for trade. Many thanks for the labels!
 

Special Thanks

April 17, 2002. A very special thank you goes to John Kirchner in the USA. The 19 new labels from John are a big step for me to reach to the 600th label.
I continue writing to Banana Companies asking for labels. Many of them didn't answer at all. Others have no labels (curious) or they told me, that they are concerned that I could apply their labels on bananas from other brands (can you believe they wrote that?). But Dole Europe and Fyffes from Ireland are very generous and sent me - at their expense - many labels. Thank you very much!.
 

500th Label

April 5, 2002. From Joan Weinmayr I received 17 new labels. Among them, my 500th, the Eat 5 A Day #4011.
Jan Pojsl from the Czech Republic, Elli Miller from USA, Akiko Kawamura from Japan and David Millán Asenjo from Spain are my newest trading partners. There are more female collectors than I thought. That's great! With the new trading partners from Japan, Spain and the Czech Republic new Thank-You-Labels are added.
 

More new Trading Partners

March 19. - 29, 2002. I gained new trading partners. From England, Ian Warren and Chris Crawcour; from the Czech Republic, Milos Krasa; and - from Ecuador - Elvis Velez, who enlarges my collection with 28 new labels. Thank You!
Also, many thanks to Belgique to Xavier Heyte.

And thank you to the Queensland Fruit & Vegetable Growers (Australian Bananas) in Australia. They sent me some labels - including the Red Tip (LBLC #0490).
 

400th Label

March 17, 2002. I received a letter with 21 more new labels from Becky Martz from Houston/Texas. Enclosed was the Finca Mundo Nuevo "Tuxtepec Mexico", which became the 400th label of my collection. I received 13 labels from my new trading partner Roman Bürkle, a generous first trade. Gerri Lorenzo contributes the Petizo Banana Ecuador (LBLC #0414), until now the latest label of my collection.

The 400th jubilee label is on its way to Becky by snail mail.
 

New Trading partners

March 8, 2002. Many thanks to Fran Wolotko from Canada. With his 30 more new labels for my collection, I now have added 370 labels.
And one more trading partner: Krzysztof Kowalczyk (called Alfer) from Poland. He is the very first collector who was attended by my new website. A letter with labels for him is in the post.
Furthermore Joachim still designs our own "Thank You" label for every country with a trading partner (yes Alfer - for you, too, of course) and now I know, what a lot of work it is to keep the website up to date.

The Website is Online

February 28, 2002. After several weeks of hard work and a lot of late nights, the homepage is now online. I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions. If you have any problems in viewing the pages, please send a mail to the Webmaster. Also, feel free to enter my guestbook. And now, have fun with La Banana.
 

Unbelievable!

February 23, 2002. This morning I received a letter from Bill Wykle. More than 40 labels, and 32 of them are new for my collection. So I now have 335 banana labels and I hope the number continues to grow.
Many thanks to Bill for this lot of new labels.

300th Label

February 20, 2002. With the Burro Banana #4229 from Frieda's my collection contains (after one year of collecting) already 300 labels. When I began in February last year, I couldn't have imagined that would I have this many labels only a year later. I got the jubilee label directly from Frieda's in Los Alamitos/U.S.A., which kindly donated some labels to me. Many thanks also to Marco Sillus from Los Angeles, who sent an self-adressed envelope to Frieda's and then - immediately after getting the labels - sent them to me in Germany. Marco, I'm looking forward to receiving the labels you will gather in May on your roadtrip across four U.S. states.

And for even more fun, the contributor or trader that completes my next set of 100 new labels will get an exclusive jubilee label.