Impulse Bidding I Can Not Help Myself !

I swear, I was just looking! I didn't mean to by some US airmails, it just happened! Checked another site by accident. Bought some Germany. Oh no! I need help! I can't stop!I need SBA!

heh-heh..

Welcome aboard. We're very supportive. Our motto...WE'RE STUCK ON YOU!


-IBFS

IMPULSE BIDDING ---------as many of you know ,I purchase my stamps at public auction . Many of the lots that I like also has NYSTAMPS bidding on them .After losing a few lots to them and understanding their bidding habits ,and truthfuly getting a little P.O., I started to bid with impluse bidding just to run up the price on them .
Let me clearify that ,when Im buying for my worldwide collection and some other collector express a interest in a speciality lot and he wants to bid on it ,usually I'll look elsewhere for a new lot .I even stayed away from a few lots which dealer friends could use ,because thats their livehood . But for a shark who swims around grabbing everything ,that is where I enjoy studying their habits and then setting them up for some pain and let them bleed a little on price.

The nature itself of the way I buy stamps actually prevents me from too much "impulse buying". I buy one or two stamps at a time at the lowest price I can find. I don't buy in bulk, the way a lot of you guys do.

To do this, I make a short list of things I need, get the catalog values, and do research to find the lowest price where I can get nice specimens of what I'm after. All this preparation takes time and effort, and so does the hunting for the low stamp price. Then I may not try to buy a stamp until weeks after I made the list. That lowest price I found may be gone. But if it is, I always find it at/or close to that price elsewhere. But it takes time and effort.

The pain in the @$$ of doing this repeatedly, hinders me from buying too much in time. But once that list is made...watch out. There is impulse buying in all hobbies I'm sure. This works for me, and keeps me in check.


-IBFS

When I was a kid I saved every penny... TO BUY STAMPS! I sold candy at school, I cut grass on weekends, I worked under the table for $1 an hour at a dent grocery store and recycled aluminum cans and glass Pepsi bottles. I even used extra scholarship funds when I was in college! When I graduated my USA collection in a Harris album was worth about $9000 CV. I sold it to pay off my car after school. Then I started collecting again. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt and kill as much as owning and looking at the stamp! Now my budget is a lot less, but looking for the esoteric in a dollar cover box brings the same thrills.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with an ebay habit. I think part of the reason I've been so enthusiastic about getting back into stamp collecting is the thrill of the auctions!

What's all this fuss and gnashing of teeth about?? You all sound quite normal to me!

I scan ebay auctions too and it usually gets me into trouble....dh gives me a monthly budget and I always go over the limit because I just can't resist so I get the little talk about once a month on budget.

ilovelabbies, I don't get the little talk from my hubby. Instead, I get frequent, slightly passive-aggressive comments. For example, I jokingly asked how much he paid for something recently, and he answered, tTwo or three of your PayPals."

Okay, so a week ago (or so) I bought a WW lot of 500 stamps and have been sorting. I have found quite a few that I do not have. I was watching a WW lot of 1300 stamps from the same seller, so I needed to buy them, too! The first batch is really pretty good, so on impulse I bought this batch at the last minute.
Stop me...
I vow to "try" not to buy anything else, but I will watch

@Kathey

I made a similar vow about two weeks ago and have failed miserably... I will do my best to not buy any new items until I have sorted the 7000-8000 stamps I have to go through already! Oh, stamp collecting problems!

I know how to stop. For a couple of weeks anyway. Go to hospital, have major foot recontruction, spend 3 days in hospital completely zonked out. Come home, stay on pain pills for a few days. I have not even put a bid on anything since the 21st of April. No more pain pills though and I am starting to look at ebay again. I am sure it will bidding time again. The surgery was ok and I get out of cast in 5 more weeks. Lots of time to persue goodies!

@yakboomer
Glad to hear that your surgery went well. Hope your next five weeks fly by and you're fit to bid again.
@ISimplyCollectEverything
Do you just sort or do you also place stamps in your collection as you go through the sorting? I have come to the realization that I sort a lot, but never put anything in my collection. When you have several thousand stamps to sort, when do you start to just to put them in the collection?
I feel like I am just hoarding, not collecting...
What does everyone else do?

I am a sorter too, sometimes that seems like it is all I am doing.
But I try to sort "smarter, not harder", into categories that one day may be organized into a coherent "collection" and nicely displayed.

I collect only Canada, but I have many "collections", most of which are not really collections but "sortations" (by date/number/type).

I have a good Lighthouse Canada album that is a "real" collection.

My First Day covers are kind of a collection because they are more-or-less sorted into appropriate Cover albums, but when I get new ones, I often have to resort to re-sorting because there's no room where it belongs and everything has to shuffle down.

Same for Back-of-book, Definitives (by grouping - Centennials, etc), commemoratives (by year), Small queens, Railway cancels (by province), etc.
None of these are true collections because I don't think they are really very "artistic" or well laid out. I keep adding to them thinking one day I will have what I need and organize them into a collection (nice pages, well laid out, coherent, artistic, etc).

For now, I buy and I sort (and I sell what I don't want - to allow me to buy more) - but I try to sort smart, because one day....