Buying Of Expensive Stamps And Wiring Payment...

I am looking to purchase an expensive stamp costing about £3000 from a UK dealer but I have never wired more than £300 pounds to a stamp dealer before. I am not sure how safe this is and has anyone wired similar amounts or more to UK stamp dealers for any stamp before? I am contemplating on flying to UK to buy the stamp but that would be highly impractical. Would appreciate your views on the matter.


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You can pick up the Perot at the same time.

Check to see if the dealer is a member in good standing with the Philatelic Traders Society (PTS).

Redwoodrandy, will skip the perot for the poor condition it is in. There is thinning right where Perot's signature is. Otherwise it is a good stamp worth having.

Jogil, will certainly do that. Thanks

I encourage you to consider investing time into learning the vender before sending money. Spending time and effort into learning about who we are dealing with is often forgotten with online buying but this makes little sense. I would make sure I had some solid recommendations or started slowly with an unknown seller and would not blindly send large amounts of money half way around the world to an unknown seller.
Don

At that level, I would batch up purchases until the cost of a plane ticket and UK accommodations are justified, and make a trip in person. Beyond the risk of loss of funds, even if the dealer is perfectly honest, the risk of loss in transit from the UK to Singapore cannot be addressed. Neither Royal Mail nor any of the private international courier companies will issue insurance at that level - I have investigated it in relation to business matters - and any personal collectibles insurance you may have almost certainly has an exclusion for items in transit.

Chris

Thanks for your valuable advices. The dealer has been in the business for 45 years, but you are right about things getting lost in the mail etc.

Hello, I'm a full-time dealer based in the UK and a former international banker (specializing in global payments). Regarding payment, I would advise against a wire transfer - besides the exchange rate commission and various fees (sending bank, intermediary bank & receiving bank) which could be 3%+ of the total, there is no recourse - an international wire transfer can not be recalled or stopped for any reason. Most, if not all, leading UK dealers have merchant accounts to accept at least Mastercard and Visa, and usually American Express. If they don't, you could suggest PayPal and use a credit card to fund the payment so you have protection in case anything goes wrong. If that's not possible, you could purchase a Pound draft drawn on London from a foreign bank in S'pore (ie StanChart or HSBC, also Citi offers this) as there is some protection which wires don't offer.

Once payment method is agreed, you still have the issue of loss in transit. Again, most UK dealers have postal/transit insurance (mine covers Royal Mail, USPS & FedEx for substantial amounts and all-risk) and the dealer should be responsible for any loss before it arrives. For expensive items, I recommend FedEx - I've never had a loss with them in 20+ years and have used them for many countries.

Hope that helps,

Steve

www.stephentaylor.co.uk

Thanks Steve, your sharing is very insightful. I was given the option of fedex as well. I will consider carefully whether it is worth the risk.

I will post when I get home.

Thanks

Do you need anything else?

KGVI, you mean purchases I have in mind? Yes, I am always interested in rare stamps that are scarce. I do have reservations about paying too much for purchases online now as a penny black cover I purchased for 400 bucks is now stuck in transit with the seller not sending it to the correct address. For expensive items, I would fly over to purchase or the seller can bring over. If the cost of the item is large and the item is good value, I may consider sponsoring a budget ticket for the seller to bring the item over.

I was actually kidding, but feel free to check out my website. I have over 37,000 individual British Colony stamp listings - all priced well below your price threshold. The stamps are in the United States.

http://www.kgvistamps.com/

Here is my index of stamp web pages showing over 160 British Colony sets including shades and perforation varieties.

http://www.kgvistamps.com/KGVIStamp...leIndex.html