A Tribute to Excellence: Stefan Rossi, Engine Builder of the Year
In an era where dedication to craft sometimes takes a back seat, it’s refreshing to witness individuals who embody the spirit of hard work and excellence. Today, I’m thrilled to shine the spotlight on our customer Stefan Rossi, owner and proprietor of ACE Racing Engines, the recently crowned “Engine Builder of the Year 2024” by the esteemed Engine Builder Magazine. This accolade is a testament to Stefan’s unwavering commitment to his craft, and we at Interfanatic couldn’t be more honored to get to work with Stef and co.
Stefan Rossi Accepts his Trophy
The Mark of Distinction
Stefan’s recognition as Engine Builder of the Year is not merely a title; it’s a reflection of the precision, innovation, and passion he brings to every engine he builds. In a field where perfection is the only acceptable standard, Stefan has consistently raised the bar, inspiring peers and earning the respect of the entire engine building community.
You don’t get reliably performing 2,500, 3,000, and 4,000+ drag racing engines without dedication to craft and unwavering precision. Simple as.
The Interfanatic Connection
While Stefan’s expertise is the cornerstone of his success, our collaboration with him has been focused on amplifying his reach and reputation through tailored marketing strategies. With a deep understanding of his audience and a keen eye for the nuances of the engine building world, we’ve worked closely with Stefan to ensure his brand resonates with enthusiasts, professionals, and potential clients alike.
Lessons from the Winner’s Circle
Stefan’s achievement offers a valuable lesson for us all: Mastery is a continuous pursuit. In an ever-evolving industry, staying ahead requires a blend of traditional craftsmanship and forward-thinking innovation. Stefan embodies this balance, and his Engine Builder of the Year award is a shining example of what can be achieved through relentless pursuit of excellence.
As we celebrate Stefan’s well-deserved honor, we’re reminded of the power of collaboration and the impact of dedicated expertise. We’re proud to have been a part of Stefan’s journey to this milestone and look forward to the next chapter in his story. Here’s to many more years of building excellence, one engine at a time!
Resolution: An Interfanatic Quality
“Perhaps there is no more important component of character than steadfast resolution.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Celebrating 25 Years of Empowering Success Stories From humble beginnings of hand-coding websites to today’s multifaceted marketing solutions, our commitment to helping visionaries like Stefan Rossi achieve their goals remains unwavering. Here’s to many more years of collaboration, innovation, and triumphs!
A New Site Takes Flight: The Fly-In Club Soars Again into Online Skies
A Warm Congratulations to the Fly-In Club Community
The Fly-In Club, a haven for collectors of the revered Flying Eagle cents and Indian cents, now spreads its wings in triumphant return to the vast expanse of the internet. Warmest congratulations to the entire Fly-In Club community on this occasion. We’re so pleased to be a part of it.
How the site presents on a desktop computer at time of launch.
The Fly-In Club’s new website is a beacon, welcoming coin collectors from all over. Anybody interested in James Longacre’s designs will find friends at the Fly-In Club. Check out the site, and you’ll find insights, stories, and the occasional hidden gem. Whether you’re a seasoned collector seeking to enhance your collection or a curious newcomer looking to take the first step into the captivating world of coin collecting with Flying Eagle cents (FECs) and Indian cents (IHCs), this site is here to illuminate your journey.
We’ll take a moment now to honor the club’s past webmaster, David Noble who passed on a few years ago. We hope to honor his legacy with this new site.
How the site presents on a mobile phone at time of launch.
The Spirit of Community
Much like the coins that bring you together, each with its unique history and allure, the Fly-In Club’s new website embodies the spirit of unity and shared fascination. It is a testament to the power of collective enthusiasm for these beautiful and interesting pieces of history, where every member contributes to the tapestry of the community. As you poke around, remember, this website represents a vibrant, thriving community, nurtured by a common passion for coins.
Members also get Longacre’s Ledger three times a year. It’s a phenomenal numismatic periodical that really digs into these series with all their intrigue and varieties.
And we’d like to offer our thanks to both Chris Pilliod and Rick Snow for their opportunity to take on this challenge with them. As big fans of coins with a few coin dealers as customers, it is with great joy that we manage the Fly-In Club website for the foreseeable future. We, too, are collectors, and we love our Flying Eagles and our Indian Cents. Such beautiful and historic designs that marked an important change in American numismatics. From the venerable 1856 Flying Eagle, some say the King of Small Cents, to the 1877 and 1909-S Indian Cents, if you want to know more you’d better talk to the people at the Fly-In Club!
The hope is to have the site updated regularly with fresh content from the membership. Whether it’s news about upcoming meetings or interesting new discoveries, we the new flyinclub.org will foster interest in these great coins.
To the Fly-In Club, its members, and all who have worked to bring this project to fruition, we extend our heartfelt congratulations. May your return to the online realm be met with joy, may your community flourish, and may the allure of the Flying Eagle and Indian Head cents continue to inspire generations of collectors to come.
Coin dealers require immense knowledge. Just to know where to look for current market prices takes understanding of using a huge number of varied resources. And, like all business ventures, they must exhibit immense courage to go out on their own and earn a living wage.
Most coin business in 2021 is online. It’s less risky and simpler that way. Many brick and mortars have closed their doors, eschewing complications and overhead in favor of doing business online only.
Not Ron Sannes and Vincent Rangone of Palos Verdes Coin Exchange. They have bucked the trend, opening, succeeding, and indeed growing their business at its physical location. Sannes and Rangone do so by harnessing their immense knowledge and by employing their courage. They use their experience to power their self-confidence, harnessing their courage and turning it in to success.
Gracian knew many wise people. And he saw many persecuted and slaughtered for their wisdom in their faith. But he also saw that wisdom not shared was wasted.
Sannes and Rangone use their wisdom and courage to succeed. And we’re so pleased to be an integral part of their success.
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Sannes for close to a decade. If you know Sannes the way I know him, you know he personifies courage.
We don’t claim to be courageous, but I guess we must be at least a little. I prefer to think of Interfanatic as encouraging the courageous. We guide them with our wisdom and experience to success. Courage is definitely a part of our everyday life, but just a little bit. We keep going and we do our best to help our courageous clientele thrive.
Do you have any idea how complicated it is to price a coin? First, you must authenticate it – difficult in this time of sophisticated and prevalent counterfeits. Then, you must grade it. Difficult to ascertain even for the most seasoned coin graders. Then you must know how to correctly employ a cross-section of coin market exchanges to properly price your coin for a viable sale. As a dealer, you must know the highest amount you can pay and still make money on a sale, and you must price competitively for a quick sale as collectors don’t like stale inventory. And you must have the knowledge to do all of this with confidence, on the fly without any reference but your experience.
That’s exactly what Ron and Vince do daily at PV Coin Exchange. They have earned an excellent reputation as fair dealers from both sellers and buyers.
Palos Verdes Coin Exchange deals daily in both run of the mill coins like common Lincoln cents and Morgan dollars, to rarities both conditional and exquisite. They deal in bulk 90% silver and rare certified gold coins. Their shop in Malaga Cove, near the police station (safe) and wisely positioned at the foot of the Palos Verdes Peninsula ‘Hill’ gives them an excellent place of business for estate inheritors and coin collectors.
Palos Verdes Coin Exchange is also a member in good standing of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce. This gives buyers and sellers confidence in an established business.
“Interfanatic manages PV Coin Exchange‘s Search Ad spend to help them provide a consistently high level of service.”
It’s great fun working with PV Coin Exchange. They’re great at what they do, and the subject matter is interesting. I often find myself enthralled by the history that these little artistic artifacts, these coins, represent.
They asked us to set up some Search Ads to present their business to the locals. It’s working out well. Their reputation is building and they now have a steady stream of regulars that come by the shop to see what’s new. The locals on the Hill now know they have a resource they can trust to get fair prices for their coins when they sell an estate or collection from Palos Verdes.
When business slows down, we increase their ad spend to keep a steady stream of customers. When the shop gets busy, we turn down their spend so they don’t get overwhelmed. All of this ensures they provide a high, consistent level of service.
Also, as we have substantial experience at many levels in the numismatics industry, we often consult for them and discuss business ideas. All in all, it’s a great relationship.
So you have a business idea, but you’re not sure how to get a domain. We’re experts in buying, selling and procuring domain names. Sometimes customers ask us to pick up a few domains while they consider their options.
The way it works is, of course ‘.com’ domains are still the most desirable. Also, shorter domain names are more in-demand. As such all four-letter .coms are bought. Most of the five-letters are gone, too. As such, even major businesses are settling for non-.coms or longer domain names.
You can set up a subdomain, xxxx.domainname.com, for free if you have that domain. And of course you can your domain length to help customers find the right part of your website. For instance, we often use get.interfanatic.com to direct people to our Get A Quote page. And that page is interfanatic.com/get-a-quote. It’s intuitive and memorable, making it easy for our customers and search engines to find.
A few years ago, a friend of ours came to us with a business idea. He wasn’t sure exactly which direction he wanted to go, so we picked up a few domains for him. One particularly desirable domain had recently come back on the market, so we swooped in and picked it up for him. We also picked up a couple that were slightly less desirable so if he wanted to sell his best domain for a profit, he had that option.
We’ve also negotiated to purchase already-taken domains for customers. And sometimes, companies want a second domain just for their email addresses. We’ve handled all of that, too. We’ve done all manners of domain dealing for clients in our 20 year history.
So if you’re thinking of a business idea, come to us and we’ll take care of you. We’ll get the best domain for you and handle the renewals. That way, if you ever get a suspicious email, you don’t have to worry about it – we take care of that for you. Our service helps our customers rest easy about their most valuable commodities – their domain names.
Interfanatic: Promoting the Courageous
It’s daunting to take that first step. Whether you’re a serial entrepreneur or a first-time trep, we love consulting with you and lending our experience to tour success. Let’s build something great together. Not only have we helped many new businesses succeed, we’ve helped to start new businesses, from drafting complete plans, to marketing, and to working through start-up problems. Of course, we’ve helped many successful businesses break through to the next level, too.
We’re here for the courageous. We helped you take the step, and we helped you take the right step in the right direction, with back-up plans in case things don’t go as planned the first time.
We’re here for you.
This week’s image: Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.
Courage, an Interfanatic Quality. Interfanatic Digital Marketing founder Ryan Delane takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.
Endeavour – she represents the courage to continue. After the Challenger debacle, it would have been easy to pack it in. But NASA didn’t. With the help of good people, they were forced to face their complacency. The shuttle program was forced to ask questions it didn’t want to ask. It was forced to look into things for which it didn’t want to see the answer. It took courage, but ask they did. Answer they did. It wasn’t pleasant. With courage, Endeavour was the result. And with it, the shuttle program continued.
“…all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.”
– Menander
As things are in 2021, they were 2350 years ago, when Menandros wrote great thoughts: they present themselves in drama. Menander was a playwright, a poet, and a comedian in Greece almost 400 years before the death of Christ. We see aphorisms and axioms presented in our modern drama, be it Bridgerton or The Right Stuff or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel today, all reflecting aspects of the ancient human struggle.
Our problems are not new. Though this quote might be used by the Communist Xi to inspire his people to labor, we can also use it to reinforce our own work ethic.
Menander’s full quote is (undoubtedly a poor translation of the original Greek, but there we are), “He who labors diligently need never despair, for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.”
I write now as this week I have labored diligently, to bring equity to my being. I have been afforded so much and must afford more, so I must labor diligently to pay for my space. To make a difference.
As it is with all of us: the human condition. And nobody understands that better than George Huber of VDB Coins. In the face of an ever-changing market, George labors diligently with his love of numismatics. He takes my recommendations and writes regularly on his website. The result is better positioning within the search engines.
As he labors diligently, we labor diligently for him.
Diligence: An Interfanatic Quality
It’s easy to work diligently when your customers are happy. It’s easy to work diligently when your customers appreciate your effort.
When things are not going well, we must dig down and keep working diligently until things are well again. When things are not going well, the motivation is to make them well. But when all is well, it’s important to keep on top of it – to keep things there, and going better.
George Huber of VDB Coins is Diligent
Selling coins is not always sexy. There’s a lot of cataloging, a lot of careful inspection, a great deal of labor that goes into a successful coin business. And, of course it can be dangerous. There are many fraudsters lurking, and storing inventory is itself a serious security issue.
To succeed, you must be diligent. And George is that. Especially in this age when everyone is vying for the attentions of the Internet, one must be diligent in their efforts.
We recommend writing and posting regularly to your site. Providing the search engines with regular, fresh, key-word rich, and most importantly valuable content is one way to get noticed and climb the ranks. Your content must be good – not spammy. You must provide information to your customers that they find valuable. But most important, you must be diligent about it. Don’t put it off – do it, and the results will come.
“The search engines reward George’s diligence, and we reward his diligence with our own.”
When George came to us a couple of years ago looking for a site redesign, we emphasized the importance of regular content updates. George loves his online coin shop, and he remains diligent in updating its content. The result is that he has increased his search position since the redesigned site launched in a couple of critical areas.
The search engines reward George’s diligence, and we reward his diligence with our own. The result is a solid website its business owner enjoys.
Social Media is ALL about diligence. You must post regularly, and you must interact with your followers continually.
It’s work. It’s hard work – not back-breaking, but certainly thoughtful work. Theorizing and enacting a lasting strategy of regular, constant posting takes work. It takes diligence.
If you don’t have the ability, we’re here to help. We can help you come up with a strategy and enact it. Interfanatic can even create content for you – content to use on your website, social media, email marketing – whatever!
We have managed some extremely successful social media campaigns for some major brands through the years. Interfanatic takes pride in our ability to work with budgets of all sizes.
If you need our assistance, it is our pleasure to help.
Interfanatic: Laboring with Diligence
We’ show up every day to do the tasks we and enjoy and the ones nobody enjoys. That’s our job. We do it, constantly, so that you don’t have to. We encourage you to, but if you’d rather, we can do that. Just ask us.
This week’s image: Interfanatic‘s founder, Ryan Delane, takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.
Diligence, an Interfanatic Quality. Interfanatic Digital Marketing founder Ryan Delane takes or creates every image you see in our social feed.
I took this from a friend’s apartment, high within the Long Beach city skyline. On the left, the cranes of the Port of Los Angeles silhouetted against the Palos Verdes Peninsula, then the Wells Fargo building. As the sun sets on another day in the city, I’m thoughtful. I think about the people who show up and work diligently every day to make that town – and every town – go around. We live in a beautiful place. I’m blessed.