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The Company
I have collected Limoges boxes since 1980 - about 28 years now as I write this. I would give them to my loved ones on special
occasions like birthdays, Christmas, and Valentine's Day. I started making up occasions to give (and give myself!) Limoges boxes - such as the "2nd Saturday of April" and Arbor day. I
LOVE them and I never missed an opportunity to buy one in an antique shop or where ever I could find them.
Back then, Limoges boxes were harder to come by... the few stores that carried them had only a meager selection at best. I
had to work to find them, but I ended up buying whatever I found. By the mid 90's, with my collection numbering several hundred pieces, I decided that it would be fun to make Limoges boxes
more available to the public. Since I was a computer engineer with IBM, I took advantage of my internet
knowledge to make
www.groundstrike.com the first company on the internet to sell
Limoges boxes exclusively.
Since that time, our inventory has grown to many thousands of boxes and our web store now requires its own dedicated computer
system. GroundStrike is located
in Austin, Texas and has thousands of satisfied customers all
over the world... and yes, we even sell Limoges boxes to customers in
France! See our Customer
Testimonials for some of our favorite customer comments.
What's a GroundStrike?
We get asked that question a lot! I have
always loved watching those lightning bolts that strike the ground far off
in the distance (and with Texas weather, that happens often!). I call them "groundstrikes" and when it came time to register a name for the
company, it just had to be "GroundStrike".
Admittedly it is not a very "artsy" or "French-sounding" name, but it
certainly is memorable! It's now our registered trademark.
Why Buy from GroundStrike?
There are a
number of sources for Limoges boxes these days - some good, and some not so
good. And some just plain awful. Many internet "dealers" have a
shoestring budget and don't keep any boxes in stock. When you order
from them, they turn around and place the order with their supplier, hoping
it will be in stock. If you're lucky and it is in stock, the box is then "drop shipped" to you. The dealer never sees the box, much less inspects it for quality - and has no control over
the shipping.
A number of dealers sell "junk" Asian "Limoges like" boxes and fake Limoges "collectible" boxes. Yuck!
Avoid these boxes at all costs! These turn up often on the internet auction sites. The internet auctions are a tricky place to begin with, and are now the internet's number one source
for customer dissatisfaction.
Many
shoestring operations don't even bother to photograph their boxes - they
scan pictures of supplier catalogs which are often out of date compared
with current production. Their grainy pictures rarely represent the
current boxes accurately. Some even try to steal our pictures!
That gets our attorney into action.
Worse yet,
most dealers on the internet simply don't understand web security
issues. They use "shared web hosting" which means their web sites are
on the same computer with hundreds of other people. Hackers have a
field-day at their sites. We have seen so-called "secure" pages that
send credit card information plainly through email!
Please be careful when you order from unknown entities! If a
web site "looks" homemade, it probably is - and sadly, so is the security.
GroundStrike Collectibles stocks all the boxes we sell (except for catalog special order items). We have a
huge inventory and we buy new boxes every day. Our boxes
are professionally photographed, and we update the pictures when box styles
change. We handle genuine Limoges boxes exclusively! We
professionally pack and ship orders within hours of
placement. We strive to ensure that all in-stock boxes in the US arrive within a week of
your order.
With our background in computer engineering, we have extensive experience with internet security. The GroundStrike web site
is on a "dedicated server" - the entire computer system handles GroundStrike web pages exclusively! We even have our own computer techs to service our computers. We're a Certified
Online Business, and we use a Thawte secure server certificate and encryption to protect your privacy. See our Privacy Policy for more information.
It sounds
like a self-serving cliché, but the fact is, in Limoges boxes - and the
internet - "always deal with someone you trust".
Thanks for
reading about us! If you have any ideas for ways we can improve our
web site or our service to you, please don't hesitate to
contact us!
Sincerely,
Sam Juliano
President, GroundStrike Collectibles |
