A guy called "Will Power" funds this forum.
No no I am pulling your leg, but you are right we are not affiliated with any manufacturers although we have had donations of competition prizes from lots of manufacturers and dealers on both sides of the pond.
I suppose the real answer is that it's been a team effort but 99% of the buck has ended with Mark - this website was originally his display case for his cartoons (
www.theyakshack.co.uk) about a bunch of hapless pirates, Marmoset moneys and a chap left to look after his six month old uncle.
A handful of founding members came from a forum owned by Topps - the LOTR Topps forum. When we discovered HP cards we realised we could not discuss them on a rival card companies forum but Mark said we could squat on his website, he's paid for bandwidth, for hosting and sat and programmed us the price guide. So Mark's done all the leg work and the funding of the forum that way.
However one or two dealers in the UK have sponsored some of the extra bandwidth that has been taken up by the price guide (all those pictures!!!) and many many many members have spent hours if not days entering data from more than 4200 ended ebay auctions to make the price guide what it is.
So what else have I forgotten in the
"potted guide to the Yak Shack"?