INSIDER is the subscription side of the AGM website. Don't worry - there is no reason why you can't use the site completely free of charge.  It costs $0 to register an account, browse the site, and even receive email and/or text notifications about upcoming AGM catalogs.  However, there are some very interesting benefits to being an INSIDER.

So what is INSIDER? There are currently three main components to the subscription side of the website: the New Catalog Preview, our A.E.F. Unit Roster project, and the AGM Reference Database.

Here is a bit more on the individual parts of INSIDER:
AEF Unit Roster Database: Over 4.5 million men served in the US armed forces during WWI, and approximately 2.5 million of them went overseas with the AEF.  At AGM, we are working to document as many of them as possible through unit history rosters and other sources, with the goal being to create the best possible working database of US WWI servicemen.  All information is entered by hand rather than just scanning the document.  This makes the database ridiculously expensive for us to produce, but also far and away more useful from the researcher's point of view than any of the other sources on the internet.  Sites using scanned data are better than nothing, but also generate lots of false leads.  Ours is designed with the collector in mind - if you acquire a uniform with initials in the lining from a particular unit covered by our database, you should be able to positively identify it or at least narrow it down to the handful of soldiers with those exact initials from that specific unit.  This project is well underway, with nearly 100,000 soldiers already entered and posted online.  We have about double that number done on another system.  There is a small technical hurdle to overcome in order to get those up online as well, but once that is done there will be nearly 250,000 entries available for your online research.
AGM Reference Database: So what is it, and how much is it worth?  This is a question that is asked dozens of times every day at AGM, by customers, antique pickers, folks who found something exciting among a serviceman's souvenirs, and mostly by us as we evaluate new items for upcoming catalogs.  So where do we get our information?  We have a rather large research library, but if we can avoid re-inventing the wheel, we do.  With over 60,000 records to browse, chances are that we have had identical or similar items in the past, and so the first place that we turn is to our own archive.  These records run all the way back to 1998.  Some of the older records (pre-2000) predate our digital photography days, but we included them anyway for the useful information found in the descriptions: pricing data, nomenclature, etc.  Now that the database is online and linked up to the item photos, this database is much more powerful than the plain text version that we have been using for the past few years.  You can search by country, era, and item type, as well as by keyword.  To refine the results, reorder the data by price or date sold (ascending or descending.)
AGM Catalog Preview: AGM started out as a mail-order catalog business.  In spite of the many obvious advantages of the internet, our print catalog persisted long after most similar businesses had gone all-digital.  Why?  Many of our customers still wanted to receive the printed catalog so that they might get a preview of what will be on the website when it opens.  There were no photos, but the descriptions allowed them to form a 'battle plan' and be ready with a prioritized list of targets to shoot for when the online catalog opening rush started.  For a while we have offered a .pdf version of the old print catalog here as a preview for INSIDERS, but now we have changed that to a live preview of the site itself, with access to the individual item pages and all of the photographs!  The Insider Catalog Preview opening time will vary depending on circumstances of the individual catalog; where possible, we will open the day before, but it should be no later than 9 am on opening day, allowing for a minimum of six hours of preview.  Preview time countdown clock is on the Insider Home page.
What is all of this going to cost?

  • Access to the AGM Catalog (currently FREE): will remain FREE.
  • Notification of new AGM Catalogs - the 'E-subscription' (used to be $25): is now FREE.
  • Insider Membership: $49.95 per year

We came up with INSIDER as a way to help pay for the ongoing effort to catalog all of the AEF servicemen in the Unit Roster Database.  This is a very costly project, and although we feel that it is well-worth the effort, frankly we can't bankroll it alone.  Our goal is to cover the expense of this project as well as the development and ongoing maintenance of INSIDER through subscription sales.  You can see by these prices (as well as the absence of commissions and fees on show sales) that our goal is to keep this priced at a level where everyone can easily be a part of it.  This is hoped to be a transformation of the website from our own sales venue to a resource for the collecting community as a whole.  With the introduction of INSIDER, the website is as much yours as it is ours.  We truly hope you enjoy it.

Click Here to add INSIDER to your AGM Subscription