For Collection Buyers, An APS Article

I think the summary is spot on. Unless we publish online, I'm not going to post the article here.

Scott

Thanks Zebra,

Nice explanation . Really tells new readers the sorry state of the hobby .

First - I feel sorry for who ever consign the lot ,they took a heck of a lost .

Second ----Sorry to hear a auction house didn't protect their customer ,who took a lost .

THIRD --- Trying to sell stamps in a room full of philatelic thieves doesn't say much for the hobby if you can't get a 3% of catalog from the others there .

Fourth --- Surprise the APS would put that story in their magazine ,who the heck would buy stamps from their members or their sales division at 1/2 or 1/3 of catalog when they can buy at 3% of catalog .

Please tell me a new collector or new reader came away from reading that story saying that is a hobby I want to grow in and be a part of .

Thanks Thinkstamp for pointing this out. The author was talking about an item in a club action. If they are anything like the auctions my club has there are typically very few bidders beyond $35. Thus there was no consignment issues other than what the seller did to prepare the lot. There are a couple good points to the article. One is look over a lot thoroughly, otherwise you may miss something, and don't just lament that the pricey stamps are missing. I will say that the magazine is a good bargain for the price of membership. I am always thrilled to have our club show listed in it (or club is also an APS member since the 60s.) One thing I'm trying to find is the 8X10 APS membership plaque that they used to sell. They used to have them for sale in the magazine years ago.

Oh wow, this was a club auction. How did the seller manage to get 3%?

Reminds me a bit of the current "Poshmark" tv commercials. The first commercial has a young woman saying that "Poshmark is the perfect side hustle" and telling us about how she found a perfect way to supplementing her income. The second commercial has another young woman telling us how she scored a designer fashion item on Poshmark for less than 10% of the original cost. Apparently the 'perfect side hustle' is to buy stuff and then flip it for less than 10% of what you purchased it at.

I think that much like a discussion about our hobby promoting a hobbyist finding a rarity, setting expectations is important. One the one hand, the majority of material in the marketplace has been recycled through the hands of other collectors and dealers for decades. It is uncommon to find truly fresh material in the marketplace and as each decade passes the recycled material has been seen by more and more eyeballs. This means that over time making 'finds' is becoming more difficult. On the flip side, it is true that a person can occasionally find something less common among generational picked over material.

When attempting to attract and grow new or existing casual collectors setting expectation is important. For me, when a stamp collector has a their expectations properly set, they are more likely to stay motivated and be engaged in the hobby.
Don

I was calling it filler since not their usual article but I would like to see smaller articles.

Just to clarify.
The buyer bid and won the lot. He paid for the small lot at club meeting. The seller got the bid amount minus any club fees, if there were any. It was a sparsely filled old album with lots of additional blank Scott international pages. The buyer thought the extra blank pages made the album look MORE empty. He pulled a few stamps that he wanted for his collection. The blank pages were sold and the remaining stamps were sold. The 3% cost was what the buyer ended up paying for the items that he kept.

The buyer thought the seller should have pulled the empty pages and made a separate lot of them. The album would still have been a remaindered album but the optics of both lots would have been better for that as one lot.

I think we are all being a bit harsh because this sounds exactly like what most of us do to build our collections.

The article is one page and lighthearted and just a reminder to look at lots with an open eye. There are tons of more researched articles in the issue. I enjoy the magazine for it's variety. It sure has generated a lot of conversation here. Good job to the APS.

Selling collections in an auction setting is always a gamble. You need to be proactive in marketing and promoting your material. It pays to spend an hour or less to write up the contents in a favorable light (if possible) and attach that document to the album(s). Maybe even a printed picture or two of some contents on the front.

If it was a club auction, the seller only has themselves to blame for the low sales price. The club auctions I am familiar with allow a seller to set a minimum bid, and the seller also describes their material and it is up to them to mention the highlights.

Now lets assume it was sold thru an auction house and look at "Sorry to hear a auction house didn't protect their customer ,who took a lost ."
Unfortunately due to the large volume of material the auction houses have to deal with, they do not have the time to look at every stamp in every album. Thus it is still prudent for the consignor to indicate the highlight with a short list and/or a few bookmarks. In the case of an album tat starts out unpromising with better material removed, the house is less inclined to look much further (although in the case of a lot consisting of a single album they should look further).

Long ago, I used to put baseball cards in our club auction... I always started them at a dollar and there was spirited bidding. One day I had an exceptionally good batch of cards and started it at a dollar. There happened to be a kid present and when his hand went up all the others went down. He won them for a dollar. So in club auctions, just be prepared to lose out on a few if you don't assign a higher min bid! Live and learn! The APS article was a good one.