Want Cool Finds On Ebay? Stop Thinking Like A Collector.

This isn't specific to stamp collecting; it applies to all collectibles. As we specialize and become more educated in our hobby(ies), and also as we communicate more with other collectors at a similar level and with experts in the field, our vocabulary naturally also becomes more specialized and jargonistic.

It's easy to "get lost in your own head" and forget that all this specialized terminology doesn't resonate with "normies" (non-collectors).

I've found that the best way to locate "finds" is by perusing listings from non-collectors and frequently outside the stamps hierarchy, and by using more simple words and phrases than I would when discussing with other collectors.

For example, it's not "postal history", "stationery" or even a "cover". It's "envelope with a stamp" or "letter with a stamp". Then add or subtract relevent keywords for years, etc.

It's not a "revenue stamp" or "revenue document" or "fiscal history". It's a "tax stamp" or "receipt with a stamp", etc.

Use words that you might use to describe the item(s) you're looking for to people that know nothing about your collecting specialization, or even stamp collectors at all. Those are the words that will pay dividends. Think of creative alternatives and then combine them into a Boolean OR search (on ebay you put the terms or phrases inside of parentheses, and a comma separating the phrases is treated as OR). If you want EXACT phrases, put them inside double quotes.

Some of the best founds I've made have come OUTSIDE the stamp categories, from listings where the seller had no idea that there was any stamp-collecting or revenue-stamp related aspect.

But how do you know what categories to look in, both within and outside the stamps category? Don't make that decision and let ebay do the heavy lifting for you: Do a search with your phrase or keywords, but across ALL of ebay. Don't be intimidated if it returns thousands of results; you're not going to look through all of them.

The listing of categories at the left with results will be sorted with category with the most results at the top, in descending order. So you can then drill down into the categories that show promise, i.e., I might skip "children's clothes" or "automotive parts" but I might drill down into "Antiques" or "Collectibles". This even works within categories: do a search for "revenue" within United States stamps, and you will see numerous listings NOT in the revenue stamps category. The same may be true for your particular specialization.

For example, I just received this document in the last few days. It was a fixed-price listing that sat on ebay for over 2 months before I discovered it. Had it been either in a more appropriate category, or been more aptly titled, it would have been snapped up in a heartbeat. The only way I even saw it at all was by utilizing the methods above.

Including shipping and sales tax, it cost me $28, which for a rank and file receipt of the era is actually overpriced, but given the stamp, cancel, and usage, I'll pay this all day, every day, and twice on Sundays. As a bonus, the stamp itself is actually quite nice.

Think outside the box... it's worth it.

Excellent points!

Another thing to consider is to look at foreign ebay listings. I have found some rare items in my specialty by looking at ebay.fr (France), ebay.it (Italy) and ebay.de (Germany). The listings on these sites are often very similar to ebay.com, but can differ significantly.

There's no way to search internationally with the regular ebay.com site? I get international listings all the time in my searches.

If you change the search from "Default" to "Worldwide" you'll get listings from the other ebay sites, at least from those sellers who ship internationally. It doesn't pick up all of the listings though; I'm not sure what the parameters are as to why some listings flow through to ebay.com and others don't.

An on point example is finding certain odd value Solo Prexies. One collector was an expert at finding them. He searched, not for the stamps, but for what the stamps were known to carry. With regularity, he would find the carried contents still with the wrapper with solo stamps. He supported his collection selling his search findings.

I have also had good luck with this technique. A couple years ago I bought a small lot on ebay titled only as "stamps" with a single photograph. It was only $0.99 with free shipping. I could tell from the blurry photograph that there were a couple banknotes and other interesting classic era US and I figured for the price I couldn't go wrong. There ended up being several stamps I needed for my collection and even a 3c 1869 pictorial in there!