Depressing US #1 Ebay Listing

https://www.ebay.com/itm/312435015427

Wow, just...wow.

Don

Always remember NYStamps' definition of "mint", as in their ebay auctions:




To be more accurate, they probably should add "may be altered, could have a cancel removed, or possibly have smallpox".

Tom, what is wrong? Lets have the lowdown on this one. Repaired, cancelled, ?

What isn't wrong? Since you can't see it:

• This is pen cancelled, with an attempted removal. Two ink lines can clearly be seen from Franklin's nose to the bottom of the stamp. Pen marks are also visible at 3, 4, 7 o'clock in the margins.
• There is a scrape or heavy surface rub at the 10 o'clock position of the face. Ink is gone.
• There are different reddish smudges at the right.
• Oh, that black mark 2 o'clock on the face? That's a thin. It has been badly rebacked or possibly the paper adherence visible in the back view was pulled off, thinning the stamp and replaced.
• There appear to me more thin spots based on the small view of the back. Could be more problems but we are not treated to a better view of the back.

Who is Tom?

As others have mentioned the stamp is not mint and has faults. NYStamps is running behind their "Some stamps could be expertly restored, regum, or repaired" disclaimer.
Their 'expert repairs' always look like someone has placed a big glob of liquid paper with a nail polish brush over thins like the one shown in their traditional low resolution back image.


Can you imagine dropping $400+ dollars on this stamp and when you receive it you flip it over to see this 'expert repair'?

Look at the bid history...appears to be two inexperienced buyers. Of course we cannot tell if they are experienced philatelists or not, but it appears that they have not had a lot of ebay transactions.

Don

Only 2 bidders says it all!

Its a huge thing that you guys do chasing these sellers.

If they could just get a bit stamp smarter!

NYStamps always seems to have cheap mint looking Baby Zeps available and it seems to good to be true.

Woo-Hoo, I'm the high bidder! ()

TBH, there are lots and lots of C18s around; despite the high catalog value (part of which is the result of that pre-Internet marketing as a "poor man's Zep") completely sound MNH examples can be had for pretty cheap from sellers that are not NYStamps.

When there are only two bidders, is it possible for one to be the seller - you know friend of looking over shoulder?

They could both be the seller and it all be a ruse to get 1 person to enter a contrived frenzy.

Hy-basil, I could see what was going on with that so-called mint stamp thank you. You can easily see the repair and the cancellation ink. As for anything else, I use a tablet so I may miss some detail.

I was just kidding Don, by asking that question. I wanted to know anything else that I may have missed, and what was so depressing?

The fact that there are people out there that think others are stupid enough to believe that description, or that these cons or people with terrible reputations are allowed to thrive out their off of unsuspecting novice collectors.

Thanks Tom.

Too bad there is not a dedicated webpage, lets call it "unhinged", that collectors can post bad transactions that were deceptive, deceiptfull, and done by dishonest sellers. Posters would do it at their own liability of course.

This was one of the first community database projects on Stamp Smarter. It has over 2000 listing reviews including archived images. You can search by catalog number, seller, etc. to become better educated on who you are buying from.
http://stampsmarter.com/BuyingOnlin..._ViewDB.html

Don

Hey, that's a great link 51studebaker. Reminds me a little of SCADS (Stamp Collectors Against Dodgy Sellers) back in the day.

Thank you Don. Great to now know more about the ones to avoid. I have not fully completed viewing your website. So much to learn, and so little time between auctions, enjoying using this site, and working on collection.

Mike

I was actually going to comment on this back with all the discussion about Anthohy's a few months ago...

This is one of the saddest comments I've seen on this board in a while:




This was not only the first project on stampsmarter - it was the original rationale for stampsmarter. If I recall correctly, the goal was to educate buyers out there...

All these years later - and the faithful folks of SCF are barely aware of its existence. How can we expect the unknowing buyers out there to be aware - if active members of SCF don't even know about it??

I had checked a few months ago - there were only a handful of listings reported for the whole year - and I had made several of them. I would've thought that by now, there would be - at the bare minimum - at least 10-15 new listings every day. Over the last year, that would be an additional 3500 listings to the database. Compared to the 4-5 that were actually posted!!

Very very sad. We talk the talk, but don't walk the walk...