Stamp Market Low?

I think that with prudent buying choices, it is reasonable to expect to get *something* back... just don't expect to get all of it back.

Stamp sales have been very slow, but may have picked up in the last couple of weeks. After I ran some SQL to set Best Offer and acceptance parameters on a group of fixed price listings a number of them sold fairly quickly at a reasonable Best Offer price. Also, a group of new listings is selling well, especially the unusual items.

Unfortunately the ebay stamp market is oversold and saturated with poorly described or questionable material, drowning out properly described or higher quality stamps or covers. The number of views of auctions of more expensive, but easy to acquire items, seems very low. I listed a color slide and got 400 views and typically get 30 to 50 views of better slides. Stamp auctions are lucky to attract ten views. Sometimes I think of ending stamp auctions with only a couple of views and no watchers after six days.

Yes, the market for conventional material is weak. Buyers will respond to unusual items if they can find them. Even the bottom feeders can't keep up with the glut of damaged, off center stamps dumped onto ebay by bulk sellers who pay as little as possible for their lots, sell the better stamps at a huge discount (because they can't really tell) and make money on the damaged, altered and improperly identified stamps.

Still, some stamps and certain kinds of lots still sell easily. Stamps selling on ebay for less than what Mystic will pay should be sold to Mystic when they are buying them.

...


I invite you to try. If I am shown by another ebay user that a stamp I offered for sale is a forgery (which happened once or twice), I pull it from the sale with apologies.

For example, a very polite expert from Estonia convinced me, demonstrating scanned examples for comparison, that a relatively rare overprint I was selling was a clever forgery made shortly after these overprints appeared in Estonian post offices. This was not a usual "How do you know this Heligoland stamp is genuine, ha-ha?" sort of primitive teasing. This was an informed critique by a knowledgeable specialist. I pulled this stamp from sales.

I am not exactly a "dealer" but I trade on ebay my duplicates, and any stamps I am not interested in, for 20+ years.

As to the usual statements of the "it's a hobby, not an investment" type, why can't it be both? Buy low, try to sell higher — that's all there is to it, if you know what you are doing. Takes some work, though.

One more thing. Being "optimistic" is not an excuse for false advertising. Yes, I try to mention positive facts about stamps I offer for sale ("four margins," "SON," "rare postmark," "scarce shade," etc.) but I would never call "VF" an off-center stamp with a couple of perfs missing and a smudged horror of a postmark — this kind of "optimsm" is revolting to me, even if it's not a "big deal" for you.

Even if this kind of cheating or self-cheating doesn't deceive most of the collectors, it creates an unclean, vulgar atmosphere around philately. Not to mention that many inexperienced people pay good money for such garbage: they are somehow convinced and attracted by all these "@@@LOOK! WOW! $$$$$!!" indecent barkers.

GEE ! You guys talk about your vast knowledge and expertize at stamps and all of us are like some stupid zombies who buy stamps off ebay.

Another healthy discussion. Obviously there are a lot of feelings among forum members on this topic as it goes to the core of the very existence and future of philately, decency off sellers, common-sense of the buyers/collectors and the aspect of investment-value versus pure enjoyment-value. Interesting reading, lot of good inputs, thanks guys.



I stay away from sellers in that category, good point by tvorog.

If I might add - I think the most decent sellers are the ones that add NO adjectives or opinions at all in their description - but simply state the basic facts like country, catalog number, year etc. Then they will leave the subjective opinion up to the buyer to decide by providing high-resolution images of front and back, if relevant with watermark liquid - and with bright back light. Even images with perforation gauge if relevant. However any grading, centering, condition, gum and so on - it should all be up to the buyer to evaluate, IMHO. Any authenticity certificates will do good, but personally I consider grading certificates piece of cr... In general I think listings from German sellers are decent, they tend to keep to the facts, neutral and professional.


Investment value? I respect that some consider stamps both as an investment and a hobby. Personally I'm in the group that has no concern for the long-time value whatsoever. I'm only 42 - I suspect that when my time comes, so have most of the potential buyers so the market value will be less than I have invested moneywise. So what? Think of it - consider the hundreds or thousands of hours invested in our studies every year, much of the time working on stamps with minimal value. That is were the 'loss' will be in terms of all those hours 'not making money'. If I was concerned with building capital, I would not have spend all those hours on stamps in the first place. I still invest all those hours for my own personal enjoyment - nothing more, nothing less. I hope to be able to enjoy that good and happy feeling until the end - the most valuable element left behind will hopefully be that my children and grandchildren remember their grandfather as a happy person. And happy persons are good persons.

Tonight I'll continue shifting my Italy collection from one album to another. It has close to no retail value, I am still enjoying the prospect of using another 10 nights or so 'wasting' my time without making any profit at all - simply for my (OCD-) satisfaction

I'm starting to think this thread is deteriorating into stuff that all too often appears on the other SCF. tvorog "invites me to try." Try what? You picked out one item from my post to focus on and ignored what else I said; that I have not found ebay to be a good source for the specialist material that I seek.

I think cfrphoto summarizes my view of ebay rather well: ".....the ebay stamp market is oversold and saturated with poorly described or questionable material......." You can read the rest of his commentary for yourself.

It costs time & money (from trivial to significant) to take a walk in the park.

The leaves have no commercial value.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

20 /15 years ago can remember saying that this is a great time to buy Australia KGV's but when this non computer stamp collecting generation goes so does their collection & horder's collections more to the point. These collection were many and lotted up in large numbers at many different auction houses.

These collectors or non computer collecting generation has all but passed away. So has the their collections.

Next year I have a new approach to selling stamps. My collection is sizable but very specialised. Focus will be on selling sheet stamps in set. S/A Australia Interpost,this is my best selling area by far outside kiloware. Scan a page out of my stock book and list it. The prices will drop hugely. Nice to have the space to do that.

Kiloware I keep very separate. It is very profitable in many ways. Much hard work but very rewarding.

Climber Steve,

It all repends on what you collect.

Yes, there is a lot of questionable material on ebay but ususally there is also a lot of good material there for me as a classic collector, sometimes at surprisingly low prices, often at ridiculously high prices. All things considered, I think approximately 50% of my collection consists of stamps found on ebay, and absolute majority of duplicates I sell are sold much faster on ebay than on any other site.