The Biggest And Most Destructive Lie In The Hobby Of Stamp Collecting

The quality of the data is always a concern. With ebay data, I think that the quality of the data is especially a concern since some of it is so dependent upon the seller's identification and description. This was one of the reasons that ebay 'encouraged' using their own predefined listing categories; anything that standardizes the data makes for improved searches and compiling of the data.

And you also raise another good point about the data crunching issue; trying to 'match up' data sets from disparate sources.

These issues are pretty common and are things that are typically handled by being able to crunch large enough data sets. For example, there are about 5-6 million house sales in the USA on any given year. This data set is large enough to deal with outliers like house condition, houses that sold for inane prices (for whatever reasons), etc. Yet calculating a fair market value for your house can be done online in just a few minutes.
Don

"Stampgreendragon - when compiling actual transaction prices from common marketplaces such as ebay, how do you account for the fakes selling for far below market value?" - This is a good question. The people coming up with estimated prices, need to be stamp experts. If it looks fake, then disrgard. Take note that some fakes sell for more than the original. On avg, I myself can come up with a reasonable market price for xyz stamp. If I can do it, and I know most people on this forum can do it, then the stamp companies can do it. For myself, when I go to value a stamp, I look at the last sold listings on ebay, SAN and other webpages. And then I look at what the stamp is selling for on various and multiple sites. I discount fakes, poorly described items and condition appropriately. Then I look at the stamp catalogue, then laugh a bit and then I make my bid or buy it now or offer etc... Sometimes the catalogue gets it right, and sometimes the catalog prices stamps too low. However most of the time, the catalog is not even in the ballpark.

"I wonder how much of the data covering online philatelic transactions exists.

I'm pretty sure ebay would not have stored 30+ years of data" - It is my contention that ebay of course does, but they do not make it public. There is near zero chance that ebay gets rid of this data. Any CEO that erases all the sales data should be fired on the spot by the board of directors. Sales data is so valuable. To put this in perspective, do you think Amazon or Apple delete their sales data? You can bet they are mining this data for information. And you can also bet they pay people 6 figure salaries to do so. You can get this data though through third party websites. You have to pay though for it and it is not cheap. This data is very valuable.

For those of you that do use Amazon for example. Do you notice that their is an " Amazon Basic" What Amazon does is it mines it's sales data for what sells and then they create branded items. ebay and sites like it are using the sales data to customize the experience. Stamps is such a large selling area, that ebay even has web pages dedicated to buyers buying stamps.

Notice all the check boxes on ebay when you buy stamps. The developers on ebay who are NOT stamp collectors but computer scientists are looking for what all of you search for and buy. Then they create a customized experience. Look on the left hand side, you can sort by year, condition etc.... So yes, ebay is keeping an eye on us. A very keen eye.

Sorry but you are giving ebay too much credit. One of their search categories is color. Who does a search for blue?

I think HipStamp has far better search options than ebay. They really aren't even in the same class, kind of like major league vs. minor league.

Shermae - Hipstamp has the sales information too. Hipvalues :) You have to pay to play.

It's called big data folks. And for sure companies don't want to share that data with you . We are all lucky that ebay let us get the last 3 months of sales data. Most places will not give away this information away, you have to pay for it. Think about this further. ebay has your profile, where you live (zip code) and your buying tendencies. You may or may not believe me, but just remember these comments while you browse on Amazon, Hipstamp, ebay etc.. That is how these companies have so much power. One day in a perfect world the stamp catalogs will be for the benefit of stamp collectors. Now as others have pointed out, they are just a relative guide. The true prices of "hot' and "in-demand" stamps however are a guarded secret by the dealers.

Unfortunately, many sellers on ebay are incapable of submitting the data that will allow all those tick boxes on the left hand side be functional. That is no better than Hipstamp. And then there are the hoards of sellers that have no clue what the pieces of paper they are trying to flog are.

The real key is still personal philatelic knowledge. The more one knows about those "pieces of paper", the better one's decisions will be. Spend the time studying and learning stamps instead of wasting it on numbers from ebay or hipstamps which may well be meaningless anyway.

On the other hand, I think that we should support however someone choses to experience our hobby. This is especially true if a person is trying to stay engaged in the hobby via technology due to life circumstances which are out of their control.
Don

Thanks to you and others there is an enormous amount of free info online today, so even those who have mobility issues can still continue to learn and add to their enjoyment (and safety).