Proposed Merger Of The APS And Asda

Preceding that comment, I stated: "I've reviewed the general financial statements and have a list of questions that need more detail and information. Once we're satisfied with the financials and membership information, we'll move to the next step. If the financials can't work, that will answer the question."

We're doing our due diligence for precisely this reason.

Whether we bring the ASDA under the APS roof, we have work to do on our existing dealer member program: raising the standards, combined with dealer and market education. If the consolidation helps us progress faster, it makes sense.

A good question is whether affiliation with a professional organization matters to buyers and whether it provides confidence in purchasing. If so, are there other dealer associations that offer the same confidence? Based on the complaints we receive, it's not always relevant until there's a problem. There's no way to safeguard every philatelic sale. For those who want trust and accountability, it should exist.

Scott

I can see the benefit to having an "APS seal of approval or accredited " kind of thing for a stamp dealer. I'm not sure if this is where it is headed, but could be useful.

I just hope the inertia of this activity does not end up pushing a merger rather than walk away. I hope the board has critical opinions and not rubber stamp this. They should be asking questions NOW and believe the will vote NO until seeing compelling reasons and alternative with all dealer associations rather than just ASDA.

Some would say there are several ASDA dealers that should not be allowed APS status. ASDA has a need to keep dealers as members compared to APS.

I do not think APS nor ASDA can "market" collecting better either alone or together to make some meaningful difference. It sounds good.

When I worked full time. the company would launch initiatives but rather than have concrete plans for 2 to 5 years out, it was more a "we will figure it out," . This happened all the time with internal reorganizations that made changes for synergy and efficiency but more often just good ideas so the details had to be worked out painfully while the business had to continue and make money, Often changes got implemented slowly (turf wars, egos). Then they wondered why they did not get results..so another reorg.

I get the feeling this is such as idea. You may want to turn the ship around but where are you really going? If the goals are vague (better marketing, more members, etc.), it is may not be successful.

I was in hardware development so I knew what I had to do for the next year or so but the marketing guys did not. Cross that bridge when they get to it so we got changing requirements.

The stamp hobby is not technology so nothing is changing rapidly.

Scott as a fifty + year member I hope that you and the board continue your due diligence on this issue. As it stands now I am not for it. if upon your final review, but before there is any sort of board vote it should be openly placed before the members for a vote. if not there should be a clear way out for the APS. ASDA is a sinking ship imo and we should not be its lifeboat.

Honestly, at this point, I'm questioning the wisdom of a merger, but not necessarily the possibility of a takeover. The ASDA is a dead man walking already. It's going to fall apart and we all know it. Instead of absorbing a rotting corpse into the APS, providing a higher quality service whereby dealers are held accountable to the much higher APS standards might not be a bad idea. Don't let their inevitable demise pull us down with it. Provide a better alternative and let them die on their own. They've earned it, after all.

I will politely disagree. This type of decision is exactly why there are organizational boards and executive directors. There is no practical way to provide complete disclosure of the voluminous ASDA documents to the APS membership at large. Many of the records which the APS leadership would need to review to arrive at a fully informed decision would either be internal, confidential, personnel or financial and not be the type to share publicly to tens of thousands of people. I trust the fully-informed APS board to make better decisions than a partially-informed membership. If I don't like their decisions, then I can run for the board and try to be part of a different direction in the future.

One ASDA positive is their quality "monthly" (11 issues per year) American Stamp Dealer & Collector Magazine.

I will have to politely disagree with your polite disagreement.

Questions are put before voters all of the time without voluminous backup material. A summary of the pros and cons of and a clear explanation of the issue is enough. You do not need to see everyone's detailed financials.

Perhaps everyone should see the ASDA financials though since the APS financials are an open book.

There are four questions before the voters of Massachusetts in the upcoming elections. I think that the APS could put the question to members of whether or they (we) are for or against the ASDA/APS deal.

I think I will politely agree with both Messrs. Becker and Rogdcam, in the sense that different organizations have different governance models with some entrusting everything to the board and others requiring votes by the membership on certain things.

I was president of a public college serving at the pleasure of an elected board and the only thing the board needed to go back to the public to vote on (other than their election) was to raise taxes or a bond. On the other hand, in the private sector I do think shareholders have to vote on corporate mergers at least in some cases.

I took a look at the APS By-Laws and as far as I could tell there's no delineation of a requirement for the board to seek a membership vote for an action such as this (though there's nothing precluding it).

There is a provision in the resolutions (2.1 "Orders and Instructions to the Board of Directors") that would seem to allow for the membership to be able to provide direction to the board through a vote. Any member may make such a proposal.

Not sure that is any help, but I sure am getting a lot out of this thoughtful discussion.

In three weeks and twelve pages of discussion on this thread topic, I still believe that there is at least one key element that has not be explored in sufficient detail in the discussions.

I would like to invite Scott English, as the APS representative and "official" spokesman for this proposed merger, to provide at least one, and hopefully two or three specific, quantifiable, objectives, that he believes will benefit the current APS members as a result of this proposed merger, and what changes will be required within the APS and ASDA organizations in order to reach this compromise.

In addition, I would like to read his (or the APS) official views on why those specific objectives could not be accomplished just as easily by an informal or even a formal (but non-merger) collaboration between the Boards of the APS and ASDA. Has such a collaboration been attempted in the past, and if so, what were the results, and why did they fail? (I will assume that such an effort has failed, because if it had been successful, the current discussion would be moot.)

In the event that it is believed that these objectives cannot be accomplished in such a less formal approach, then what will the specific concessions required by each party to such a formal merger look like from the view of the collector and dealer, and how would those concessions improve the collector experience and the dealer experience.

The stamp collecting community currently has many alternatives and resources for the purchase of new materials by collectors. Even a merger of these two organizations will only represent a small portion of those buying alternatives. If the primary long term objective is to improve the overall collector buying and dealer selling experience by this merger, then what are the next steps that are in the "thinking" stage to expand this improvement in safety as it applies to the elephant in the room: eBay ??

Surely the proposed APS/ASDA merger is not intended to be the end result of the current thinking.

I believe there has been a past history between the APS and ebay to provide safeguards for buyers, and make the buying community more aware of miss-described materials offered there, but if there is a current, operational program, I have not seen any discussions of it here. I think it was a website called something like "Dodgy Stamp Dealers", which no long seems to be active. Where did that effort fail, and why? What events since its demise make anyone believe things will be different today?

The APS and ASDA already have quite similar goals in terms of working to provide a safe environment for collectors to make purchases in the stamp collecting community. Their individual "Code of Ethics" have many of the same components, but these appear to have been applied differently by the two organizations. There was an earlier statement in the thread, which if I recall correctly, stated that a substantial number of the current ASDA members were already APS dealer members as well.

Therefore, where is the benefit to the APS to bring the remainder of the ASDA member dealers under the APS banner, and what assurances will we, as collector members of the APS have, that once these additional dealers are brought under the new APS/ASDA dealer banner, that those who fail to live up to the "new" standards will be disciplined and the membership be made aware of the discipline process?

In the absence of more specific goals and plans for their execution to be provided by Scott English and the APS, I find it difficult to support this effort.

Mike

That's a fair point. You already have buyer protection with ebay since they side almost entirely with the buyer. Paypal offers buyer protection. Most credit cards offer buyer protection. If you're taken for a ride, chances are you're already covered to one degree or another. How does this deal make things demonstrably better for anyone? I'd love to know the thinking behind this. ebay is certainly not going to require all stamp sellers to be members of the APS, neither will Hipstamp or any of the others. It's not in their financial best interest to do so. Saying that you can choose to buy from APS-verified sellers so you have more protection is meaningless because you can already do that. Saying "this makes us bigger" isn't the same as saying "this makes us better" and I'm not really seeing how it makes the APS a better organization overall.

Relying upon eBays 'buyer protection' does not prevent fraud nor does it prevent damage to the hobby.

Many of the unethical ebay sellers will make a large sale, get their money, then go dark (they have plenty of other accounts). Yes, ebay will cover small refund amounts but good luck in getting ebay to refund high dollar transactions. ebay will indeed cover a buyer claiming up to a hundred dollars or so, but go try to claim $1000+ from them and you will find they tell you to go pound sand. There are many examples of this happening in our hobby (and in this forum) and I think that many people never come forward because they are too embarrassed that they got taken. And many times when someone is taken for significant amounts of money, they will walk away from the hobby.

And much of the fraudulent sales never even get caught. ebay is filled with single stamp listings that are mis-described or misidentified stamps. I think that a significant number of these sales go to buyers who do not know they are being taken, put the stamp in their collections, and go to sleep congratulating themselves on the 'good buy' they just made. Years later family members are left thinking they have a high value collection only to find out that most dealers will not even make an offer on it.

At least 70% - 80% of the non-certified Washington/Franklin coils listed are either mis-described or misidentified. Checking the US #315s listed. Throw a rock and hit a mis-described or misidentified listing for stamps which are harder to fill in many albums. This is why the ebay issue is so insidious, folks who are spending higher amounts of money to fill harder to get stamps are at most risk. They are trying to pick the hobby back up after being out of the hobby for a while, start to fill some holes in their collections, get taken, get upset and leave, then tells others that the hobby is full of pitfalls.
Don

Mike --

You've posed several very valid questions. In the proposal's preamble, I outline the issues I believe we should focus on.

1. I think most people view online sales through the lens of their experience. As Don rightly notes, it's fostering a level of trust for people who don't have the experience or knowledge of more sophisticated collectors. ebay is a vast expanse of sellers with varying degrees of knowledge. Some people don't know what they're selling, and some people know what they're selling - either honestly or dishonestly. A knowledgeable buyer can get a stamp and know it was misdescribed or has an avenue to verify the purchase - expertizer or colleague - who can help them spot issues. Most of us have a story of getting burned on a sale - fewer of us have a happy ending - the rest of us chalk it up to a learning experience. We routinely get contacted by people who have invested thousands or more on a collection from a disreputable source where they paid more than catalog for perfectly common stamps. I've seen some pretty sophisticated scams that rise from unethical to outright fraud. This is where a clear professional standard comes into play, and a brand to associate with that trust. You might be able to get your money back through ebay or PayPal, but there is no guarantee that same misdescribed stamp doesn't go right back up online and sold to another, less sophisticated purchaser.

2. Dealers of days gone by started with a more experienced dealer/auction house/stamp store to gain knowledge of the business before starting out on their own. Today, dealers often emerge from longtime collectors starting a second business in retirement. I could open an ebay store today and sell stamps. I'd like to tell you seller ratings are a fair portrayal of the business acumen of the seller, but they are not necessarily. There's a nostalgic tug for show dealers and stamp stores, but the overhead and effort are probably never going to bring those personal interactions back like they were 30-40 years ago. The rest of the retail world has transformed, why wouldn't the stamp business? But, the infrastructure to support confidence in the hobby - particularly expertise is decreasing with the loss of those traditional dealers. What good are stamp sales if the number of experts objectively evaluating the stamp disappears? Scott Trepel wrote a great piece a couple of years ago intended to be a call to action for us to develop the next generation of experts. Sadly, the pandemic put the brakes on it, but the need continues to grow.

3. There has to be a critical mass of sellers and collectors that can leverage online platforms to better serve the interest of the collectors. A default refund policy ignores the danger of the marketplace and gets rid of the buyer smart enough to know the stamp was misdescribed, but there is no incentive to shut down the seller. I suspect many of the regular ebay buyers can name one store they simply avoid for those reasons. I wrote an article a few months ago about a dealer that claimed APS membership and our Society Attorney sent a cease and desist because he had not been a member for ten years. His first act was to remove the claim from the letterhead. His second act, reapply for membership to the APS. That column affected his sales online. With his membership, he will be expected to abide by the Code of Ethics and if not, he will be held accountable. My very first Board meeting as Executive Director, we heard an appeal by an APS member who owned a large ebay store and had numerous complaints against him. The basis of his appeal was that he was not a majority owner, even though the site claimed the proprietor was an APS member. He was disciplined, but then removed the label from the site and continues to do business. We receive complaints and send them to ebay and the store is still there. Why? That store generates revenue, not serving stamp collectors. I don't believe we will truly change ebay's practices, but we can use better transparency as a way to market ethical dealers and push other platforms to take a different tact.

4. Flagging bad actors and maintaining a flagged dealer or trend list. The Washington/Franklin example Don used is perfect. How do you communicate dangerous stamps to buy and advise buyers how to better protect themselves in the marketplace. This gets a lot easier if we've accomplished items 1-3. We have a Stamp Theft Committee that notifies the public of stolen and missing stamps as a be on the look out for stolen goods. Our dealer members have assisted law enforcement community in recovering stolen stamps or prosecuting bad actors. Coordinating these issues on a broader scale provides value to the stamp-buying public. I don't know about the Dodgy Stamp Dealer site, but that's a model to look at.

Specific to your question about the proposed merger, as I've stated multiple times in this thread, it requires due diligence to ensure the merger helps us advance those goals and not add to those challenges. Until we get the financials and member list, your questions are my questions. I would never recommend to the Board and doubt they would accept that any ASDA member disciplined by the APS gets a free membership back into the organization. In concept, the ASDA is a ready-made community that can help us move toward accomplishing those goals. However, if the conditions or clear financial picture weaken the objective, we're at the same conclusion, we'll start with our dealer membership program instead. It's not as far along on its own, but it may actually be the best option to preserve and advance the goals I outlined.

There still seems to be this notion of a "done deal" or a rubber stamp. My own public statements have consistently stated an expectation of more information to evaluate a more detailed plan. The Board has been fully informed throughout this process and will continue to receive information along the way. The Board will have to take two actions, if we get past the discussion phase. First, authorize a negotiation for a final plan and second, when it's completed, approve the detailed plan.

Prior to my time at the APS, I had the responsibility of leading the reorganization of five state agencies in South Carolina, four fix-it jobs after a crisis (that's the only time people feel a need to fix things) and one as the COO at a $4 billion agency. That's aside from the other responsibilities I carried for the governor in eight years, including three as Chief of Staff. No two are alike, but all of them were a success by any objective measure - the most enjoyable was getting DMV wait times down from two hours to 10 minutes, which, even after a scandal, was an enduring success of the administration. At no point in any of this did my ethics ever get called into question. It was not from a lack of effort by some folks in the political world.

Having said that, each one of them required a process that took time. It took six years to convince the public and the General Assembly our unemployment agency was broken and corrupted. It wasn't until the state went from a billion dollar surplus to a billion dollar debt that the General Assembly fired the three retired legislators running the agency and turned it into a Cabinet agency accountable to the governor. They also adopted the financing plan I developed to pay off the debt without soaking every business in the state for more taxes. Five years later, the debt was repaid and taxes on most businesses are substantially lower than they were before 2010 and the trust fund is healthy.

The facts should dictate whether the merger makes sense, not a predetermined outcome in search of a justification. There will be ample time before the first vote, if it occurs, and the second vote, if it's necessary, to provide the membership insight into the finer point details and take feedback. I hope that helps.

Scott

I don't know if you write for a living, but you certainly should.

While I would not word it this way, using our existing program as the starting point is an option on the table.

Scott

Just because the bylaws do not require something, does not mean it should not be done to gather more feedback? I see the response as an excuse not a reason.

If I recall the details, APS leadership wanted to modify the executive director role but were forced to do it by vote with bylaws change. It would have been interesting to have seen this proposal prior to the election. It may spawned more discussion and competition. People often are asleep until it is too late