Stamp Auction Network Will No Longer Be Free For Bidding- Subscription Based Only

Lorry - I did miss that. Siegel was the one I did not check. Every other one had no such language. Your observation is interesting and makes more sense from Siegel's perspective. Their catalogs, unlike many others, obviously take a lot of effort to put together and become reference works on their own. If you use Siegel's site directly everything is visible. I was surprised that others such as Cherrystone and Harmer-Schau had no such language.

On their site, they have a different worded 'Guidelines'...



https://siegelauctions.com/guidelin...rictions.php

But perhaps the copyright of their catalogs is different than the website content?
Don

It is not like ebay shouts the information about viewability but here in the Shilling Policy it does reference it. The high highlight is mine.

Shill bidding is when someone bids on an item to artificially increase its price, desirability, or search standing.


Policy overview

Shill bidding happens when anyone—including family, friends, roommates, employees, or online connections—bids on an item with the intent to artificially increase its price or desirability. In addition, members cannot bid on or buy items in order to artificially increase a seller's feedback or to improve the item's search standing.

Make sure you follow these guidelines. If you don't, you may be subject to a range of actions, including limits of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account. Shill bidding is also illegal in many places and can carry severe penalties.

PPG - Wrong topic?

No. A review of the posts on page eight of this topic will show I am within topic. It also may appear back on page seven. Page eight is from where my quotes were lifted.

Let's see paying to bid ,paying to ship ,paying state sales tax plus paying 20% ,guess there will be less interest for me to increase my bids .

I figure out losing one very active bidder the Stamp auction firm can lose about $20,000 a year in sales ,how this works is one bidder who stays in thru 3 or 4 uping bids ,leaves another buyer with hundreds of dollars in savings .

Its just like taking your hand out of a bucket of water.....

$49 is less than 1 increment when you're bidding at your level!

A lot of the firms we all know, and love sell multi-millions per annum. They do not want to lose bidders, but it one $20,000 bidder won't be missed after they have their lunch especially now when lots of new faces have entered the arena AND the resellers NEED to be bidders at the usual suspects sales. Either that or switch to selling Beany Babies or just hang it up. Where else do most, let us say, ebay resellers continue to acquire their material? Craigs List?

Stamp auctions are a lot like Vegas casinos. They always win in the end. Unless the screw up really bad like Regency-Superior or drink the profits. I can see why they do well given the obscene double-ended commissions. I also enjoy watching the same material go under the hammer scores of times whether it be a single stamp or a large lot that has been picked, rearranged, recalculated, redressed, reconstituted, regenerated.... Let's face it, most of the stuff being sold now has been around the block soooo many times and earned the Houses 40% total over and over and over and over.

rogdcam I agree, there are very few domestic auction firms that sell the material I need for my business, and the need is constant. Occasionally I have a problem with a firm but I have to be careful I can't afford to antagonize an auction house, I need them more than they need me. On ebay there is always another seller but not so with public auctions.

Ken

Ken R. ---your right ,it is less than one bid ,besides I like working thru SAN's .

It has now been 1-2 years since this change was implemented. For those of you who use SAN, I'd like to remind everyone that the shift to charging buyers was intended to improve usability for buyers, not just for sellers. (I think) Have you noticed any new features or benefits that have been introduced since the fee was implemented that actually helped you? Has there been any real added value for buyers over this period? I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

The provenance and previous sale history is only available to paid subscribers, as far as I can tell. Plus some of the custom reports, census, white papers, etc. I don't recall if these were all available before for free or if they were new additions since the subscription fee was added.

I have found the sale history to be very useful on a number of occasions to get a good sense of price expectations for a particular stamp. Today I am reviewing an auction listing on SAN and because of the SAN Provenance/Census, I see that the same stamp was previously sold in 2009 by a different auction house who described the stamp as having a "manuscript cancel removed" and that is not mentioned in the current description that I wouldn't see if I weren't a paying member.

The premise that the only way to use SAN is via paid subscription is incorrect. Tom continues to offer an annual, zero charge account that gives access to bidding, auction review and searching, etc.

Thanks guys. yes, I was just curious if there were any new features that should be considered or that we should be aware of. SAN and Tom have revolutionized the stampauction business. ie even with Hipstamp and ebay and the standalone auction houses, it still stands alone as the go to place for stamp auctions. Hope SAN stays in business for a long long time.