Proposed Merger Of The APS And Asda

There is but one golden rule when it comes to ethics in philately or anything else, "Let the buyer beware".

The APS used to be the guardian of ethical conduct between collectors and other collectors and dealers as well as an ambassador to the public for our hobby. It now has become, over the years, a less respected self servicing money driven enterprise. Sad,

Is there any information on the ASDA website about which dealers they have actually disciplined or removed from their membership? What good does it do to discipline a dealer if there is not information available to the public?

The APS has a page on their website with information about each member disciplined, when, and why. However, they do not identify which are member-dealers, although a few names can be recognized as dealers.

When a somewhat recent dealer of year ran into trouble (firm when bankrupt and consigners lost much), all mention of the dealer disappeared from the website. I am sure they want as little attention as possible rather than public announcement policing their policies. They consider negative news bad. Many would do the same thing.

I saw on another social media area the discussions with ASDA was not done with ASDA president.

mml42

The ASDA used to publish an annual directory of members on paper as a book.

An appendix listed the names of dealers who were expelled from the ASDA.

The APRL online catalog lists the editions of this directory now in various libraries.

The following is the most recent that I see on APRL: "American Stamp Dealers' Association, Inc. ASDA membership directory 2014-2015," published in 2014. It was 78 pages and stapled.

Back in the 1990s, the editions were thick enough to be perfect bound.

I do not know if the editions published in the 20-teens still listed the expellees.

I spoke with several folks about the merger proposal before approaching the ASDA Board, including ASDA members (yes, actual dealers) and past leadership. This "secret deal" narrative is absurd on its face, given that the ASDA Board and membership have to approve it.

There is no way I would manage that process without informing the APS membership.

The ASDA conversation ended with a promise to put something specific together, and I sent it to both the APS and ASDA Boards to see if this could move forward.

One of the lessons I learned in 25 years in the political arena is that it's easier to undermine the process than the policy. I've added information to correct the record, but I can't make others correct it.

Scott

michaelschreiber

Thank you for the "hint" about the ASDA Dealer Directory.

I checked my shelves, and found the Directory for 2009-2010 and 2012-2013, why I didn't find others is probably due to a poor filing system. I believe these were packaged with the ADS&C magazine for which I am a long-time subscriber.

The count of dealers in the 2009 edition was 510; the count in the 2012 edition was 456, a loss of 54 dealers in three years. No doubt there was attrition due to retirement, or most likely death (Do stamp dealers ever really retire?)

I next compared the names in the two lists, and my count (not verified) was 38 new names for 2012, which when considering the overall loss, indicated that there was an actual lost of 92 original members from the 2009 list.

I believe an earlier post mentioned that the current dealer count was about 245 members. This is a decline of about 50% over a decade.

I did not make a specific count, but I observed that many of the missing names in the 2012 list were based outside the United States.

Neither issue included any list of ADSA Members who had ben disciplined or expelled.

Mike

I have no idea what the business model or budget of the ASDA might be, but it is obvious that their primary source of income is NOT the membership fees.

There have been earlier posts that they organize and manage stamps shows and are good at it, but it is not apparent to me what shows they are directly involved with, as all of the shows I've worked with, including APS CoC type shows, had no direct income or help from the ASDA, although I know that many of our dealers were ASDA members.

I agree with several previous posts that a better picture of the financial aspects of this merger need to be revealed, if not publicly, at least to the APS Board, with the stipulations that they make some presentation to the membership as to any negative (or positive) impact to the APS budget, and how any losses will be mitigated in the first few years following a merger.

Just sharing information, the ASDA sent out the following communication this afternoon:

AMERICAN STAMP DEALERS ASSOCIATION, INC.

Dear Members,

APS has sent ASDA a written proposal outlining a possible merger or consolidation involving both organizations.

Many of you have seen this document since it has been posted on Facebook and the APS website.

In the interest of keeping our members apprised of the offer, we are attaching a copy of that written proposal.

ASDA has not responded to this proposal yet. However, the ASDA Board of Directors has formed a committee to study and review the offer, seek member comment, and make recommendations to the full board.

Again, we emphasize that all discussions are in the earliest stages and no commitments of any kind have been made by ASDA to APS.

No deal can be consummated without the approval of the ASDA Members, the ASDA Board of Directors, and the New York State Attorney General.

The ASDA Board of Directors

October 7, 2022

Part of the ASDA business model that everyone seems to ignore are putting on the ASDA shows. If you think all they do is rent a space, have tables set up and slap their names on the marquee, it's a lot more than that.

Unfortunately, I just don't see a fit, and there has to be one for a merger/consolidation to be viable. Got one?

And as for this off-topic stuff, what about APS members that have been thrown out? And I suppose wherever you work publishes names of people that have been fired and the reasons why. Maybe you'd only be happy if names, photos, addresses were published online?

APS does publish disciplined members information.

I don't spend thousands of dollars on stamps with my fellow office workers.

Knowing who is a bad actor is valuable because virtually all will keep on selling and it is good to know whom you are dealing with to the maximum extent possible. It helps with due diligence which everyone should engage in.

None of this is off topic if you read the reasons given in the APS memo for considering an APS/ASDA relationship.

APS publishes that info in their magazine; that's not really what would be considered public information.

So, rogdcam, crooks are okay since they don't affect your bottom line? Hm. Wait until somebody in accounting embezzles a few million. This happens with banks often enough and those thieves often get away scot-free : bad for business to advertise such things.

APS's mission is to protect its members and does so by publishing in its journal disciplinary actions so every member gets a chance to see it. APS cannot control the rest of the world. This was supposed to be a core aspect of APS but the online world has reduced the value. These surpassed the older sales platforms like Linn's who also has/had standards for sellers. Linn's never published the sellers they dropped. ebay uses their own flawed seller ratings.

It is online for anyone to access:

https://classic.stamps.org/Disciplinary-Action




We were talking about stamp dealers/sellers.

I am not sure that the APS Disciplinary Action online list contains accurate information; there is some odd things going on with the data distribution.

For example, if you compile and look at the total number of 'disciplinary actions by year', the results are as follows.

The trend line shows a huge drop over time. You would expect a bit of a drop since the number of memberships dropped over the same period but it should not be nearly this huge.
One explanation might be that APS members/human race became much more ethical over this time period. This seems unlikely.

It could be that the criteria for inclusion in the disciplinary actions list change during this time.

Also note that the vast majority of actions are for 'failure to account for a sales circuit' or 'for failure to pay for or return philatelic material'. It is unclear if the 'failure to pay' is for APS transactions or include online transactions from online venues like eBay. Note the page does say, " This list does not include individuals against whom disciplinary action has been taken by other organizations.'

Also note that Steve Zwillinger (https://goscf.com/t/61278) was expelled from the APS in 2018. This list does not contain any information on this.

So for me, this link leaves me with more questions than answers but I guess any information is better than none.
Don

I believe what is posted by ANGORE above hit the nail correctly .

ANGORE said the -- Core aspect of the APS .....has been reduced with other online market places .