Done Any Business With Vistastamps Or Arpinphilately?

I went looking last night for an online dealer to fill 25 or so holes in my collection all in the Scott 300s and 400s. I wanted someone who could fill my request in a single order to avoid multiple shipping charges. My requirements were: Used F/VF. None these issues sell for more than $2.50 and most are around $0.30.

The dealer I settled on is vistastamps.com. They had everything I wanted in stock at what I considered to be reasonable prices. The only downside I saw was the stamp images are generic but at these values, so what; their stated policy is return for refund or replacement.

After placing the order it dawned on me that their website looks a lot like arpinphilately.com. In fact it looks like both sites are store fronts for the same stock. Even the contact telephone numbers are the same.

So, before I consider using them for pricier items I thought I should check with the forum to see what experiences, if any, others have had. I searched the forums for both URLs and the only hits were for folks citing them as good reference sites.

Terry

I purchased something from Arpin Philately many years ago. As I recall they are based in Canada (Toronto?). But I purchased supplies from them directly, not via ebay. As I recall, they had two storefronts possibly, maybe one was in US. I was looking for album supplements and they had something that sort of slotted in. I received the goods as ordered.

Here's the website. Try the US-Stamps page and see if they have the same items.

https://www.arpinphilately.com/

HungaryForStamps: I checked a couple on each site and they matched in every respect.

The site's contact information both list PO boxes in Farnham, QC. It's probably nothing but it seems strange.

Terry

I order approvals from Arpin in Canada. Vista is their American storefront.

I've had mixed results with the approvals. Some bad quality and some good. I finally sent them an email outlining exactly what a VF stamp is supposed to look like. They were labeling everything VF and a quick glance, front and back (I've had some bad backs!) tells me it certainly is NOT VF! So double check their grading. Hopefully you won't get too many duds. With me they took to sending smaller numbers of older stamps. I'm having to check them more carefully.

peanut: Thanks for the advice. It's good to know they stand by their stated policy.

Terry

If you Right Click and click on "View Page Source" on each sites home page, they are almost identical twins. More than likely they are the same people but the sites might have been designed by the same webmaster.(I believe they are the same store.

Many people set up near identical sites hoping to have a better SEO and land more on first page of search index. It doesn't work that way, in fact, it hurts SEO. Those search spiders are pretty smart these days.