Question About Noblespirit On Ebay

I hope this is ok to ask and I hope I am in the right area to ask......
Is NobleSpirit a good source to possibly find treasures in some of their lots?
I am possibly interested in some of their listings and was wondering if I can find some decent items in their lots or are they picked through?
Thanks,
Bob

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

This is a lively 2021 discussion about Noblespirit and a few others here:
https://goscf.com/t/78739

Hey I'm the first reply in that thread! I don't even remember using harsh language but yeah my thoughts haven't changed haha

The conversation linked to is coming up on 2 years old.

I purchased one item from NS on ebay about 2 years ago. No issues whatsoever. I appreciated that they provided good photographs of the stamp taken from several angles. However, over the past few months of viewing their listings (those of specific interest to me, natch) I noticed that they've fallen afoul of the practice of offering little to no information about the stamps. In place of descriptions is an admonition to "look carefully at the photographs for any flaws" (paraphrasing). That puts the onus entirely on the buyer, and that doesn't fit my definition of a stamp dealer's job description.

I can't offer opinion on whether you'll find hidden treasures in their listings, but I can cast light on what I consider to be shady selling practices. When the text of an ebay listing consists primarily of grandstanding about what a great seller they are, and not much about what's being sold, I tend to stay away.

PACKETRAT ----- You asked " wondering if some decent items in their lots or are they picked thru " the answer is Yes and No .

What does "decent items " means , to me a decent item means a French military cancel on a French military stamp {I showen it here on this board } , Hong Kong stamp with a cancel from Thailand , or a Dutch West Indies perforation that Scott catalog doesn't list . So when you say "decent " are you saying a $50.00 stamp in a $20.00 lot then the answer is NO .

When your talking of finding a decent stamp remember that stamp lots has been viewed by 5 people before you get to it , I plus many other buyers have look thru hundreds of lots if not thousands of lots at auction and never bid on them because we didn't find anything decent for the price . You can bet everything your buying is already viewed and inspected .

There is always the story about a great find in stamp buying but that is like the story of the lottery ,there will always be a winner .

Thanks everyone for the replies. This helps.
Thanks again,
Bob

https://stamps.org/news/c/start-col...hael-cortese may be of interest.

All of my purchase experiences with Noble Spirit have been positive. I have suffered no need to return or ask for a price adjustment. I lose more than I win.

Bid upon what you can see. If you are cynical enough to believe every side of a stamp not pictured is not picture to hid damage, bid accordingly but don't expect to win.

Yes, but in the original poster's words, are they picked through?
Is it a habit of this or other dealers to skim through the lots and pull out the best items and sell the remainders, or are the lots generally sold intact as received from the original collector?

Some collections in albums look to be cherrypicked already but I can't tell about other group lots especially when not every item is photographed.

Zebraman ---Me and hundreds of other collectors like to think we are all buying from a collector who called it quits or from a deceased collectors estate . But the fact is you are buying from a company that is buying at one of the major auction houses and has been already been gone thru by the firm and dozens of other collectors decided not to over bid this high bidder . Sorry when your dealing with a big seller on ebay and with the sale numbers that this firm has ,they are clearly buying at auction ,N.Y. stamps was buying $200,000 per auction 4X a year and the prices they were bidding ,ticked off a lot of MidWest dealers for many years ,that was the huge need for material by just one ebay seller . .

Assume that every large ebay lot or traditional auction lot for that matter has been thoroughly picked through many times over and your assumption will be correct 99.999 percent of the time.

Edit to add:

My personal experience:

I have sold large groups of red boxes in the past. Sometimes 40 full red boxes. I filled those boxes by picking through my large lot auction purchases. Those red boxes were in turn sold at auction. I have seen my red boxes pop up at least seven times since I sold them and each time they have been gone through and the balance once again sold. The only treasure to be had is in auction house commissions. 40% times seven sales (at least). The commission money far exceeds the actual lot costs when sold. When I sold the boxes the auction house made 40% from buyer/seller. After sale seven (all sales had roughly the same winning bid prices) the auction houses had made 280% of the original sales price. Amazing.

Noble Spirit does mention when the owner (consignor) order the sale of an intact lot be it a collection, group, topic, holding or what ever term you wish to use for more and one and less than a google of items. Other time one larger group is broken in to three or four smaller groups without concern for sorting the material. A couple of such grouping of hand painted or colored covers come to mind. They seem to sell at a similar per cover price if 100 in a lot of the same 100 in 5 lots.

In my opinion, the amount of 'new' (has not been in marketplace in the last 25 years) material in the philatelic marketplace at any given time is somewhere around 5%.
Don

Thank you all for your replies. I think I will give them a shot. I will look for a small group of albums with older stamps in it a chance. I like looking through this kind of stuff. Basically, I have bought a few lots in the past from craigslist and a lot from someone from my brothers work and I gave everything a quick look. I am holding this stuff for another year and a half when I retire to "treasure hunt" when I retire and move to Florida.
Thanks,
Bob

Its been a while, but in the past, I've bought maybe 20 lots from NS, mostly large U.S. cover lots. I pick thru and pull out what I want for my own collections and sell the rest individually on ebay and HipStamp. Regardless of whether or not the lots have been picked over, I've never not come out ahead using this strategy, in some cases, way ahead. There are 'sleepers' to be discovered, not recognized by previous pickers or even by me, they're value only discovered by the bidding as they're auctioned off (one Christmas themed illustrated ad cover I found in one of the lots sold on ebay for $350, my cost as part of the lot being less than a buck). Ignore their sensationalized titles and roll the dice...you might end up with a smile on your face. One caveat: prices for their large lots are running much higher today than when I last bought from them, so keep inside your comfort zone when bidding, especially when buying stamps (covers being more nebulous in terms of downstream value as opposed to stamps where catalogue values come into play).

I have bought from noblespirits and have been satisfied with what I have received on a number of occasions. Like all dealers (sellers) of stamps look and read description befor bidding. The reason I would guess noblespirits gives less of a description and rely on the photographs, are the returns of the past. Some collectors believe they should receive a superb faultless stamp everytime regardless of price paid. Even then some would not be happy if they got $100 to take the stamp. Some would find fault even in that. So not giving a description and replying on what you see maybe less problematic in some sells. They are not the only ones relying on photos more than descriptions the stamp. I have notice a lot more have went to this format of selling as for late.

I never bought from them, but Michael Cortese, son of Joseph Cortese, owner of Noble Spirit, is the co-host of the "Conversation with Philatelists" podcast.
In the video below he discusses how they break down collections.

In the video below he talks about Noble Spirit.


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