Old Album Pages On Ebay- A Cautionary Tale

With the increase in prices lately for White Ace pages I have taken to trying to find less expensive alternatives on ebay. A lot of vendors sell supplements and album page sections in the original packaging, I think a lot of these are old dealer stock from shops, etc that these vendors have obtained in wholesale lots. Often this works out well. I have had a bad run of luck lately, I have had to ask for refunds on three purchases of page sets, all of them listed as 'like new', 'never used', etc.

One had foxing all over the page edges and on the backs and the pages smelled like an old basement. One was terribly damaged on all pages, bent and chewed up. Today I got a part three of Israel tabs from a vendor that has a very large ding on all the pages in one corner, not one page is something I'd use for my collection.

I am not worried, I got refunds on both prior purchases and am sure I can work things out with the most recent seller. I just have to wonder- don't any of these sellers inspect what they are selling? I mean how much time and effort would it take to pull out pages from the envelope to be sure they aren't damaged goods? I did ask the most recent vendor before bidding if the pages were in good shape and like new as he said and he said they were. Either he lied or was too lazy to check for sure. Just a word of warning... don't try to save a few bucks on this sort of thing. Better to buy from a dealer...

Same thing with the Scott International used album, they are old edition with cheap paper, the holes are not at the same distance from the edge too, so old editions will not align with last edition ( 93 or 97 I'm not at home )

Before bidding I sent the seller this message:

'Are the pages in this and the other Israel tab albums you re offering undamaged and in good condition. The envelopes look from the pics to be a little dinged and banged up, so would like to know before I bid, thanks. '

His reply:

'The pages are in mint condition and have never been removed from the envelopes they are pictured in. '

Of course he did not bother to remove the pages from the envelope to answer my question.

One thing I notice about white Ace is that the envelopes they package their pages in are sort of flimsy. They don't protect against damage.

White Ace are some seriously expensive albums. I used them back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Once the mortgage and the kids came along, I really couldn't afford them, or the requirement to collect se-tenants split up and together.

They are gorgeous albums, though.

If White Ace was printed on large paper and can be use in 5 rings+ or 2 posts binders I will look at them, but 8½ x 11, no way I can do it on my laser color printer. ( my 11x17 laser do only b&w ) I have not check their simplified version , but it may be a good idea to avoid $ 1000+ stamps

I have almost never had this sort of continuing issue with buying any other album pages on ebay. White Ace is getting to be paralyzingly expensive; most page sections for their albums now run $50-60. Buy an entire set and you've spent hundreds, even from a discount dealer. You could buy a hingeless album for not much more.

I used to see a lot of these page units on sale by ebay vendors, not so much now. Lots of supplements but not the album parts. I think a lot of collectors have snapped up the old stock that was out there. Now a lot of what is left are the dregs. It is a sellers market for this stuff. I am sending back the pages for a refund. I still think this seller was dishonest with me; I specifically asked about this issue and he just said what he needed to say to get the sale. Sadly as I have found, he's got a lot of company.

Sellers of supplies such as album pages ought to provide prospective buyers with a scan or picture of the pages themselves; not just a pic of the envelope- it'd take 20 seconds to pull them out and take a picture of them. I think for some, it's just s gamble that if there is damage you won't bother to return it. Buyer beware.

Tell the sellers your concerns before the sale, if they won't show you the pages, don't make the purchase.

I did exactly that today. Anther vendor same situation, I asked if he had pulled the pages from the envelope to verify no damage. His reply was 'I got this from a dealer and they SHOULD be undamaged'. (my emphasis) Needless to say I dropped him quickly. It is a jungle out there.

Their simplified version does not include all major Scott numbers.

This is why I like using Steiner Album Pages. One or more gets damaged... just print a new one.

The one thing I wish Steiner did differently was that he used bold for the names of the stamps and countries. Other than that, I really like the work he's done.

I experimented with some pages that would add descriptions to the left-hand side like the Mystic Heirloom does.

Then just use Libre Office Draw to change them, it's a free application, I just open a page randomly to show you , Sound like more work, but hey, I reopen all them to center them ( I use plastic protectors to insert the page ) and I also remove all the souvenirs and se-tenants to use only single , so I have too change size of rectangle and add new one.

I probably owe my existence as a collector today to Steiner and I like his work a lot, but I have a couple minor quibbles. While I generally like the sparser layout of his pages compared to Scott, sometimes I wish he would have tried to fit just a few more stamps per page in order to save binders and shelf space.

The other thing is that I wish his yearly "supplements" would go back and incorporate prior years when appropriate. For example, there are some countries I collect that might issue one or two semi-postals a year, which means there's a whole page with only one small stamp on it. Over a period of 10 years, I'll end up with 10 pages for 10 or 15 stamps that could all fit on one page. It would be great if he'd go back a few years and consolidate those so there are several stamps on the page, spanning several years. It would also be nice to keep long-running definitive series together instead of spaced a couple here and there throughout the years. I understand why he doesn't do that - I'm sure just keeping up with new issues is plenty time-consuming without having to go back and re-do past years.

Those things are really observations more than complaints as I know that designing one simple page like that myself wouldn't be all that difficult. There have been few better deals in the history of philately than him selling his pages for $30 and for that, I'll always be grateful to him. I may have well walked away from stamp collecting altogether had I been "forced" to buy a several-hundred dollar album or had to deal with other solutions I found less than ideal.

Starting to feel the same way with Steiner. Can't do much more with my US collection without spending some serious money so I've begun going through all the old albums and collections I've picked up in my quest for US material. Thanks to the Steiner pages, I've been diligently printing countries that I have a lot of stamps of and putting together a semi-decent WW collection that if it wasn't for the Steiner pages, I'd still probably have little interest in. So far I've tackled Italy, France, Australia and currently putting Great Britain together. It's been a fun last couple of months feeling like a new collector again

In my current research to compare my choices for my US collection I came across this US company whose owner has developed very nice full color
pages for the entire spectrum of US issues. I'm waiting to see some requested page samples, but wondered if anyone has purchased from http://stores.ebay.com/Stamp-Paraph...4634.c0.m322

Although I'm seeking out a high quality hingeless album for US 1847 to 1930's, I realize most collectors would rather spend their money on additional stamp issues rather than inflated album, pages, and slip cases. This is especially true for collectors of the entire spectrum of US stamps, and even more so for collectors of world wide. The answer may be independent small publishers who provide fair and affordable choices. That includes http://stores.ebay.com/Stamp-Paraph...4634.c0.m322
The only other mainstream US albums I have seen reproduced in full color are the elegant, but expensive Davos.