Somebody Just Gives This Stuff To Me And I Sell It...

It seems that if I order a stamp from a seller, an awful lot of sellers make mistakes in what they send me. It has gotten to the point where I insist on return postage in my refund if they want the stamp back because I get so many of these mistakes.

Often I get a response like this when I inform a seller that I have received the wrong stamp: "Somebody just gives this stuff to me and I sell it..."

This means the seller has absolutely no knowledge of what they are doing, and evidently this "somebody" doesn't either. I think these sellers should be clubbed and skinned.

Sure, I can report the seller to Stamp Smarter, but that still doesn't get me the correct stamp on the next order.

I am working in areas where secret marks, watermarks, grills and other things that separate one stamp from another, must be checked first before mailing, and I request this. Buying on ebay is taking the fun out of collecting.

Has anyone else run into one of these types of sellers? I seem to be a magnet for them. Any advice and thoughts from anyone on this would be appreciated.


Thanks

-IBFS

Happen quite often, when you see they don't know stamps and they sell it for someone else of for the widows next door, run , run faster.

This is the problem with ebay and the internet in general. It costs very little, so everybody and their ignorant brother does it. When you had to rent a store or a booth at a show, you had to be more serious about what you were doing.

or else you pay the price to learn it. And the most funny thing ; sellers are always complaining about their mailing expense. I will like to see them react at the cash register in a store if they was adding extra....oh but you have to pay $ 1 more for cover the coffee of the staff, and extra $1 for electricity and ...

It's like if it's the seller who make a favor to the buyer by selling him something

Mistakes by sellers can be caused by ignorance, carelessness, or something worse. My personal experience is that I have been "done in" more by dealers at stamp shows than by sellers on ebay. Bad lighting and limited time work against a stamp collector. With stamp shows now mostly a thing of the past...for me, and with more knowledge and experience, I don't see too many mistakes in my purchases.

I would add that I am very careful. A large portion of my purchases are repeat purchases, and I read descriptions carefully. If I can't feel sure about an item from the seller's pictures and description, then I pass it up...very easy.

Brake- I could not agree more.

Frankly I find this problem to be very frequent even with experienced sellers/philatelists. There are a few folks on ebay where after perhaps 2-3 of the same problems, it became clear to me that mis-describing condition (eg selling hinged stamps as MNH) was essentially a standard operating practice for them.

I've called out any number of sellers on this problem, and I very often have gotten the response of "I guess my eyes are not as good as they used to be." Rubbish. If your eyes are no good, you should not be selling stamps, period. I know that's harsh, but if you can't see the gum condition, why describe it as MNH except to try to extract extra money from the buyer?

Another problem I see sometimes is sellers who correctly describe stamps as MNH but where there is significant toning, foxing, spotting, or staining on the gym. The seller has taken the time to review the back of the stamp for hinging, but while doing so didn't think it was important enough to note the gum disturbances? C'mon, this is a greed-based approach and should never be acceptable.

A stamp described as MNH must not have any gum disturbances. If it does, the stamp should be described as "Never hinged with gum disturbance(s)" or imaged for the buyer.

Until I got on the forum I would have sold the stamp MNH not realizing the gum disturbance was an issue so sometimes it is just not knowing what you are selling. I have learned more than I ever thought through every one here. THANKS!! Sometimes I feel like I'll never get it.

This goes both ways. I once bought an unused 20c Canada Jubilee. The seller sent it . . . and his entire unused Jubilee stock. That included every value plus extras and shades. When I opened that packaged I just about passed out. Obviously I returned them, but how could someone make an error of that magnitude? I never totaled up the value, but the entire group must have catalogued well over US $20,000. Mistakes happen. By the way, the seller gave me a nice unused 50c Jubilee as thanks.

This issue has been discussed elsewhere on this forum, but I think it bears emphasis whenever possible. "Mint" means "as issued by the Post Office." This refers to both sides of the stamp. Once an unused stamp has been hinged it is by definition no longer mint. Therefore, "mint hinged" is a contradiction in terms. Such a stamp would be correctly described as "unused, OG, hinged." If a stamp has not been hinged but has gum that is not in Post Office-issued condition, then it is "unused, NH, disturbed OG" as shermae says. "Mint" is not the same as "unused," though the two terms are often (incorrectly) used interchangeably.

As as been mentioned elsewhere, what these terms mean varies. It is a standard convention amongst auction houses in the UK that "mint" means previously hinged. If you want Post Office-fresh, you need to look for "unmounted mint". And if you're satisfied with no gum, pick up "unused". The key is to try to understand what a seller means - and check if necessary.

Let's not forget that catalogs like Scott's and Stanley Gibbons list hinged item pricing in "Mint" and "Used," no doubt part of the reason the collecting community has adopted these terms. I much prefer Gaman's system as it's much more descriptive and exact.

The Scott Catalog does not apply the term "mint" to hinged stamps. The best place to look is in the beginning of the Scott Valuing guide in the United States Specialized Catalog.

Yvert and Maury use three self-explanatory terms: neuf, neuf sans charnière and neuf sans gomme. The categories they use for their pricing depend on the period, as with other catalogues.

CFRphoto- wow, I did not know that. I need to re-read their "how to use" info in the front of a catalog. No kidding- I probably have not read any of it since the 1980's lolol