Ebay The Golden Age

Back around 1998 I was new on the internet and looking for fellow stamp collectors to chat with...then I discovered ebay ! I did not care for their stamp chat room...there were a couple of know it alls and they would just talk over a person like myself..so I quickly learned that I could not go there. The auctions were a different story...i did not even have a scanner..just by description alone (try that today !) I was selling all kinds of stuff...nothing super big..but if I sold ten or fifteen dollars that was money I could plow back into my stamp collection. Of course the worldwide stamps auction of those days bears no resemblance to the bloated thing it is now...perhaps it would be better if people went back to ACCURATE descriptions of what they are selling rather than pictures !

Ahhh those were the days- I remember with my fishing lures I could post an auction of something I still had to make and knew once sold I would have 5-7 days until the mailbox would fill up with money orders. At times I'd be at the bank teller for an hour depositing 50-100 money orders at a time. Now its paypal only and god forbid if it takes you 2-3 days to ship an item. I even recall never waiting for a personal check to clear and never getting burned once. Sounds like were talking 20-30 years ago but it wasn't that long and wow it was so much easier.

glad we can relate..yes it was payment by check in those days..if I received two payments a day I was thrilled, and the items went out next day ! I had one guy complain...i advertised 8 ounces of off paper stamps and he put them on a scale and said it it was only 7 1/4 ounces ! I wrote back and asked "how about the quality and condition of the stamps ?" Received no answer ...

8 oz of off paper stamps is a lot. I would estimate there were about 3500 stamps. He might still be going through them.

Hi to all
yes the the good old days of ebay when you could really find a bargain and make money selling items.
Now, charges for this, that and the other, and off course paypal.
What ever happened? ebay got greedy, that is what happened.
I still sell on ebay, but the charges eat horribly into profits, so you have no recourse but to include the hiddn ebay cost in your prices.
Horamakhet

I too miss the good old days of ebay for selling only. It was so much easier, cheaper and friendlier. There were less crooks. I also liked getting mail. (I AM a stamp collector).
There are however many things these days that are better for buying. There is more product out there with a greater variety. In the early days there was a lot of common stuff. Nobody dared to put anything up of real value for fear it would go too cheap, and if they did dare to do so it said such a high reserve or starting bid it was not worth bidding on. When is the last time any of us bid on an auction with a reserve? They were quite common in the beginning. The opening bids were high. The shipping charges were high. Some people made very good money on the shipping charges alone. Dealers stayed away from ebay in the beginning. Many of them saw it as competition and were reluctant to sell on ebay. Almost all dealers embrace the internet and ebay today.
So these days I mainly buy on ebay and sell elsewhere.

pjsstamps, yes I remember stamp dealers at shows making a joke out of ebay..a few years later they had their wife and kids scanning and listing for them !!

I miss the old days of ebay and have quit it years ago .During the 80's and 90's I ran ads in LINN'S selling worldwide box lots and sold hundreds maybe close to a thousand boxes of worldwide stamps. I would go to stamp auctions and for a few hundred dollars spend fill up the back of a SUV. Sometimes being the only bidder on dozens of boxes.
Then ebay can along and started selling everything on a massive scale ,with many listings selling at two or three times the price I was satisfyed with from my stamp ads in Linns. Even was selling "buy it nows" I clean out three full closets of stamps at very high prices,it was amazing on the prices I was getting .Sold all the unwanted cheaper stuff. My collection grew and grew ,then all the ebay garbage started with higher fees and paypal. So I quit selling .

I started with ebay in 1999 and really liked the days of before the Paypal dominance rules. I have three banker boxes full of covers from payments sent from around the world. I cherish those covers. I even liked the old Mister Lister over TurboLister (turtlelister). Now I dread every update from them.