Michigan Antiques Directory

We are John and Leslie Victor of Zeeland, Michigan, sister city to Holland on the Lake Michigan shoreline. John is a software engineer and Leslie is an antiques / collectibles dealer. We have 5 children between the two of us and one big, lovable cat named Otis.

In November of 2000, we determined that our collection of kids and bills had gotten a little out of hand. Since our children are priceless, we decided to tackle our dilemma by selling John's assortment of coin and comics and Leslie's prized vinyl LP collection on eBay. We did quite well, had way too much fun and began buying for resale. The love of the hunt became a passion!

By June of 2002, we could no longer walk through our house and Leslie rented her first booth. A year later, John wrote a website for that charming little mall. While looking for places on the Internet to link to that website, the idea for Michigan Antiques Directory (MAD) was born and our mission became clear. What follows is the short story of the history of MAD.

October, 2003 - the domain for MAD was registered with a hosting company. John began the process of gathering information and constructing the site.

February, 2004 - the county group of Muskegon, Ottawa, Kent and Allegan, as well as the county group of Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Emmet, Grand Traverse and Leelanau had listings numbering about 50 and MAD went live.

May, 2004 - we add a database to the website to handle a heavier load of information and increase the functionality of the site. Now, we have some power!

By 2005, we have representation for every county in the state, with listings numbering around 900. We continue to refine the site with particular attention to search engine criteria - most especially Google.

The year 2006 - we are at launch point. The verification process in under way and we have added infrastructure to support our customer service goals. We now leave our "About Us" page and invite you to head over to our newsletter, the MAD RAG, for current information of our development, progress and performance. Just select the named link from the above menu.

Our official portrait

This is – by far – the best picture we have ever taken