Something You Should Always Answer 'No' To

I just bought an old album with plate block air mails. How many and how old I won't know until they get here. I did tell him "No, leave everything alone and ship in a box." I guess that's the risk you take when you troll general auctions rather than sticking to the stamp houses. At least he didn't proudly say 'I stripped the stamps out and put them in a bag for you'

The answer isn't always "no" by any stretch of the imagination. If you don't want a tatty old binder, why pay for it? I've had people buying CDs and suggest my removing the discs and inserts from their bulky plastic box, which makes a big difference on international shipping. With cigarette cards, I've offered to remove them from sleeves to reduce international postage costs.

I agree that you should always say no.

The bigger question is, "How does the seller pack the shipment?" If the pages are loosely packed without adequate stiffeners and cushioning, then there very well could be problems.

I didn't want them to put their fingers inside the book again once I had paid for it. They could be great stamps until the moment a klutz rips something. I'm paying up and hoping the stamps are high quality.

My customers ask me to ship without the binder quite often and I say no. If it is over 13ozs it's going to be Priority mail anyway and they won't save much and there is more risk to the stamps.

Many customers ask me to strip the stamps from the pages and ship in a glassine to save them a couple $. Again I always say no, it takes time for me to do that but the big problem is the risk of me damaging a stamp when removing it from the page. If I damage a stamp does the whole collection become "Not As Described"?

I wouldn't pull stamps from leaves. I'm comfortable with reducing customers' costs if it's straightforward - the price differential for them can be substantial. So always "no" isn't the right answer for me,

If the pictures in the auction show an album, no matter how tattered, they owe it to you. I've won auctions on ebay where it was just a few stamps on a sheet and the person still kept them hinged on the sheet. Just imagine if they'd decided to save a buck on shipping by tearing them all off the pages?

That wasn't the OP's question. He was offered a favour, he declined it.

It wasn't exactly a question though, more like a comment on people who don't know much about stamps and who don't consider that even the smallest changes in condition can drastically affect the value. I recently bought a set of Scott Albums from an estate sale that went for dirt cheap because they were largely empty. The sellers didn't know that the albums can be just as valuable as the stamps inside. It's always interesting to buy stamps from people who don't specialize in them.