Recommended And Trusted Sellers

I have to agree with Revenuecollector on this; soooo could I make a suggestion although, to be honest, I'm not sure how easy - or difficult this will be to implement. Is it possible to create a database on which we can list dealers/sellers we have dealt with and comment on the transaction in general? We don't have to list every transaction but a general feedback which we can update or add to over time. This may give a truer picture of the integrity of individual sellers and act as a type of database to fall back on if we have any doubts about a certain seller/dealer.

Don - Take a look at the feedback on one of your "bad boy" the ebay sellers please. If he has say 5,000 positives, that means there he has had 5,000 transaction that the buyer was satisfied with. You can't protect people from themselves. Some maybe knew they were buying a fake #315 so they could fill a hole in the album and show off the catalog value to their heir. Maybe a case of ignorance is bliss.

Nobody can police a site like ebay, or any free marketplace for that matter.

Anybody can ask a specialist auction house who they might recommend for purchase of stamps that are below the auction house normal minimum lot value. I am sure any of the big house would be happy to give you the names of the best dealers in your collecting area.

In a flea market environment, the more knowledgeable flea will win every time. So, if you lack the expertise, don't buy at a flea market.

Hi Richard,
Understood and agreed, you can't protect stupid buyers from themselves and I also agree that no one can 'police' online selling venues. But what we can do is communicate information that assists intelligent hobbyists with making better buying decisions.

eBays' moronic 'rating system' is virtually worthless for many reasons. Common sense dictates that no one can have thousands and thousands of transactions with 100% positive feedback. And ebay has done a very good job with convincing buyers that there is little or no risk when buying. This perception is critical to ebay's bottom line so most everything they do goes towards this profitable distortion.

But we all know that this is simply not true, there are good sellers with bad ratings and bad sellers with great ratings. We also know that ebay does no vetting of the accounts, allows people to own as many as 50-75 accounts, and looks the other way with the thriving 3rd party industry which allows people to buy and sell existing ebay and PayPal accounts. The fraudsters also count on everyone taking a 'buyer beware' position; it allows them to thrive and operate for years uninhibited. The philatelic press and many of the hobby organizations also appear to have buried their head in the sand on this topic. 'Gee, let's pretend that online fraud is not really damaging the hobby' appears to be the thinking.

The best weapon a hobbyist can arm themselves with is education, not relying a badly flawed rating system or ebay other propaganda. Hobbyists should invest not just in knowledge about the stamps they buy but also about who they are buying from.
Don

eBay's feedback system is a legacy from back in the day when feedback was a 2-way street and actually meant something. ebay has adopted the position that there is no such thing as a bad buyer, only bad sellers.

Buyer feedback needs to be eliminated entirely, since no buyer has anything other than 100% positive. You don't see buyer feedback on Amazon, and there's a reason for that.

Also, the ability for high-profile/high-volume sellers to (1) run private listings where feedback is hidden, more importantly (2) get negative/neutral feedback scrubbed, and (3) as you mention, buy "clean" seller accounts, makes the entire thing meaningless.

I've gotten some good deals from NYstamps, as well as CK. I've ordered by mail from McMillan & Wife in Calif, and I have been quite happy getting approvals from Nicklas Holt in Tenn. His office staff keeps correcting my dumb mistakes in figuring out what I owe him and sending me a credit with the next order.

Don

You are taking it the wrong way. I am talking about those who buy only from ebay and go no further. It is obvious that anyone who visits this site is going beyond ebay, so there is no reason for you to be offended.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_so...ssn=Robham35
for French colonies.

I can think of several to devoutly ignore including one on the original list.

Paul Wilson
Stamporama

Greg Tanico
Soundcrest House
Stamporama

Just stumbled onto this thread. Dudley, thank you! Based on some of the recommendations above, I would like to offer a couple comments. It matters not, that you have been recommended, but by whom you are being recommended. And since a couple collectors are actually telegraphing how little they know, my best recommendation is to pay attention, question everything and everybody, and study hard. If you succeed (based on my definition of success) you will view the philatelic universe far differently than before.

I'll add my 2-cents worth:

http://stores.ebay.com/deveneystamps/
http://stores.ebay.ca/Pristine-Canadian-Stamps
http://stores.ebay.com/chairmanmuscc719y90/
http://stores.ebay.com/moton114?_tr...047675.l2563
https://www.donsclassicstamps.com/

Terry

Hi

How about Anthonys and Aldrich, I've found very interesting stamps there, but as always you must be careful.

Only so few from Stamporama?