About Us
Notes & Queries imports and distributes upscale greeting cards, gift packaging, and stationery items from more than 25 publishers in the UK, The Netherlands, Germany and Israel.
Notes & Queries was started more than 30 years ago by Alan Harnik, known affectionately as “Big Al” to our customers and friends. The company was conceived in Madagascar, and then nurtured from a small pushcart in Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston in the late 1970's. At that time, Alan was selling handmade cards and crafts from Madagascar and American handmade greeting card artists. The company grew from a pushcart to a basement apartment to an old airplane factory with no heat to a 12,000 sq. warehouse in Baltimore over a period of 35 years.
Even now, Alan, along with co-owner and daughter Vanessa, share the same passion for the business he had those 30 years ago, and Notes & Queries continues to bring you the very best design-oriented greeting cards and stationery from Europe. For anyone who has met "Big Al", you know there is no one in this industry more enthusiastic and passionate about a great card than Alan. Enthusiasm is contagious!
Located in the Middle River, a suburb east of Charm City, Baltimore, MD, Notes & Queries employs 20+ people. In fact, the average tenure of a Notes & Queries employee is over 13 years! Our warehouse manager started here boxing cards with our VP of Sales over 25 years ago, and nearly his entire family has worked here--all of his brothers and his mother. Currently, we have a set of sisters, a set of brothers, a father and daughter, and a mother and daughter all working in our office and warehouse.