$1 Totem Pole Single For $65 On Ebay !!!

So the person buying a stamp like this is buying something that they cannot see ??.

Another question that follows from the above is are these gradings used only in Canada and the USA. One poster said that they thought that the buyer would not be from Canada so perhaps others take notice of this - I just do not know where that would be.

My original post was just so I could try to understand what was going on as we do not have this grading system in the UK. I am certain of the response a UK dealer would get if they offered such an item at a UK stamp fair.

Also my $1 offer was just to try to understand the system. Normally when I make an offer at say 10% below the BIN price I get a message saying that this will be sent to the seller. In the $1 offer case there was an instant rejection proving that a fixed reserve must be in place. So why not just auction the stamp starting at the reserve. I can only assume that it is in th ehope that someone will offer an amount over the minimum the seller would accept.

AQ

I think you may be misunderstanding how the best offer system on ebay works. It's not synonymous to starting an auction at the reserve amount.

As a seller, you can set up a Best Offer listing with one or both of the following settings:

1. Auto-decline offers below $XXX. Any offers below the threshold are automatically declined and offers at or above the threshold are sent to the seller for acceptance, decline, or counteroffer.

2. Auto-accept offers above $XXX. Any offers above the threshold are automatically accepted. Any offers at or below the threshold are sent to the seller for consideration.

So if you choose to use both settings, you could for example, list an item for $100 Buy It Now, Set Auto-Decline to $25 and Auto-Accept at $80:

1. Offers under $25 would be autodeclined.
2. Offers above $80 would be automatically accepted.
3. Offers between $25 and $80 would be sent to the seller for their consideration and/or counteroffer.
4. A Buy It Now of $100 would obviously be accepted.

By using one or both settings, a seller can maximize their usage of the Best Offer mechanism while eliminating the hassle of "low-ballers".

Thanks for the explaination. As I have said before I would like to understand the system. I can see how the system you outline would benefity the seller but, and there is usually a but, fro the byers point of view things are different.

As I buyer I want to buy at the lowest price I can and with this lot I have no idea what that may be. As far as I can see the only way to do that would be to start at a very low price and slowly add $1 at a time until the offer gets sent to the seller or I get fed up. The later is probably what is going to happen first.

I think you missed one option. I see from other BIN / make an offer lots on ebay that the seller can set a price for BIN and also a minimum price for an offer. That seems reasonable all ways round.

AQ

Bear in mind that, in my experience, the person making an offer is usually only allowed three goes. I no longer buy stamps on ebay, and never do BINs, but I've bought some clothing, and I've found that you usually can't be more than 10% off.

I believe that number has been upped to 5 offers per listing. I don't know whether that's eBay-wide or if it varies by category.

I've won Best Offer lots with offers as low as 50%. Some of the highest profile stamp sellers with "exorbitant" asking prices actually accept offers well below their asking price. They're using the "throw it against the wall and see what sticks" model of selling.




Well of course you do!

Seriously though, you as the buyer want to buy it at the lowest price you can, and the seller wants to sell it at the highest price they can. Opposite ends of the spectrum.

How is this any worse for the buyer than an auction listing? You have no idea where a listing might finish. The only thing you can control with an auction is the maximum you are willing to pay.

This model at the very least allows some back-and-forth negotiation. I don't see it as a bad thing at all. What you are wanting is a "Lowest You're Willing to Take" listing and ebay already has that format. It's called Buy It Now without Best Offer.

On rare occasions, I make offers on stamps. Usually this % amounts to the postage cost. My maximum successful offer was around 40% off.

Overall success rate has been somewhere around 50%. I'm seldom, if ever, buying classic stamps on ebay.

Nice to read various opinions on a simple Canada stamp, worth not much actually !!I do not feel responsible for the nutty people that sell on ebay (lol) and cannot change anything.

Thank you to all participants, right or wrong.....does not matter on ebay !!! I shall keep my MNH-VF copy in Album and not put it on Eb !~

At the end of the day, a stamp is worth % of CV, that is all and I would not pay more than that (under % CV)

René

So many ebay "buyers" do not understand offer listings. It is in no way a selling price. Yes you can offer 50 cents. And the offer will either be accepted, rejected by the seller or rejected automatically.
I've pretty well stopped listing 'make an offer' lots because most people don't understand the opportunity.

Just to clarify, I only suggested a 50c offer because the seller was trying to sell a $10 stamp for $65.

In my opinion, the seller was insulting our intelligence with the starting price, so I was returning the favor.
As it turned out, ebay did not even let my offer go through.
I typically make an offer about 75% of the sales price if it is an item that I want to purchase.

For the record, I sell British Colony stamps from my own website and use ebay as a primary buying source for the stamps I sell.
I currently have over 36,000 listings on my site. All are sold individually and are identified by Scott, Gibbons and Commonwealth numbers (for King George VI issues). None have overpriced certificates appearing to make them something they are not.
There are a number of good sellers on ebay and I enjoy working with them.

Sure, it may be a $10 stamp... but it's accompanied by a $30 (submittor cost) graded cert. That factors into the mix. Just because you consider graded certs worthless doesn't mean the seller is "insulting our intelligence".

It may be more than YOU would consider paying for the stamp and cert, but that doesn't make it insulting, fraud, insert other over-the-top adjectives here.

There appears to be a mindset amongst many here that amounts to "This seller is charging way more than *I* would ever pay, therefore he is a scammer, committing fraud, ripping people off, etc." not realizing that different people have different collecting methods, budgets, and approaches. While I personally would never pay SMQ premiums for graded stamps, there is a collector market that does. That doesn't mean that sellers of said merchandise are ripping people off. Perhaps try to approach the issue without blinders on.

Sure, I shake my head at some of the asking prices and realized prices for graded material, but at the end of the day, since I am not in the market for that material, it's really none of my business what prices are asked and realized. If it sells, more power to them.

There's no deception or fraud here.

I guess the beauty of opinions is that everyone is allowed to have one. And it is okay if they are different.

My opinion is that a certificate is needed for rare or hard to define items, and a complete waste of money for common easily identified items. But if you feel you need one then by all means get one.

Did anyone notice if the stamp we are discussing ever sold?

KGVIstamps - I agree that one of the reasons for getting a certificate is to identify challenging stamps. Other very useful reasons are to check for alterations and faults.

A pristine quality and condition stamp should command a better price. DO you understand that the stamp catalogues provide pricing for a certain centering in addition to fault-free condition? For example, Scott lists the pricing for VF centering for most stamps that are fault-free (yes, there are some exceptions that Scott calls out to this for certain stamps and stamp types).

Stamps that have much better/worse centering than VF are also priced in Scott with different prices.

If you will only pay at most the VF pricing, then I guess you will as well sell for at most the VF pricing, even if you have a superb sound stamp?