I really don't understand the problem here. If there is no demand for the products a store is selling it will eventually have to make changes or go out of business. Based on the sales I've had and the excitement of the "soaring sales" thread, seems to me that the site is doing great. I wish everyone great success and I believe we should leave it in the customers hands on who should be on the site. If there is no market for your product on this site you will have no customers and will be forced to leave the site or face losing their store. I believe the customers not the sellers should be the ones to choose who will succeed and who should vacate the site. I can't think of anything else l have to say on this subject. I look forward to visiting your stores. Thanks for letting me share my opinions.
When I looked the original pictures in the first post, the first thing I thought was.... "there is a manuscript cancel I don't have! Too bad the stamp is so beat up." At some point in my collecting efforts, depending on how many holes are left, the last stamp in that group may become more attractive to me. Even low money stamps may appeal to someone.
For example..... I am seven stamps short of completing my Portugal collection I started as a teenager. Over the years I have replaced the space fillers with quality copies. All that is left is a few low dollar stamps that I have been unable to find, not because they are rare but because they are not worth someone's time to list.
Note to sellers: Here is how buyers like me shop.... search for a missing stamp from our collection, get excited when we see one, add it to the cart, browse the rest of that sellers offerings looking for things on our want list, add matches to the cart up to my current stamp budget, checkout.
I was shopping here yesterday and I found a 20 cent stamp I needed. Bought everything else the seller had that was on my want list. Turned into a $64 purchase. Was that worth the seller's time?
I had replaced a space filler of a $1500 stamp that had perf problems and a thin. Before listing it for sale I decided to remove a substantial pencil mark from the back. I caught the edge and ripped the damn thing 3/4 the way down the center of the stamp. Still looked good from the front, listed it for $10 properly described and pictured, sold two days later, shipped it half way around the world and made a happy collector.
My point to all this is mot every collector is looking for only expensive stamps. Maybe I don't understand the purpose of Hipstamp. I thought this was a place for sellers and buyers to come together and enjoy a thriving marketplace to make sales and expand collections. With the attitude of some of the posters in this thread it seems I have that wrong. Could it be we need a "Hipstamp-Elite.com" for the stamp snobs that won't then be bothered by lowly collectors like me?
If opinions are being aired, then everyone is entitled to mine. Through the years I've often heard there's no one right way to collect and that an individual can freely chose his interests and methods; whether to pursue their selected path cheaply, expensively, casually or seriously....or anywhere in-between. Trying to accommodate this diversity in a single site entity then becomes challenging when appearances are regarded more by, say, discriminating collectors who set standards for their own collections and may unconsciously extend that tight tolerance to their sources of acquisitions. The question of how Hipstamp ought to present itself in light of the varying positions perhaps, ultimately, lies with Mark and his vision. Can the site be inclusionary yet allow for search refinements sufficient for those wanting to limit over-exposure to "undesirable" material? The notion of what is "faulty", while debatable, at least has some parameters in the realm of certification and that may be a filtering mechanism as some have suggested and worthy of consideration. Personally, I find the currently-existing options of progressively-narrowing searches normally quite adequate. To be candid, though, I tend to shun damaged stamps much as a coin collector is wont to reject cleaned coins and I would prefer not wading through such in general listings. I think maybe I've exceeded my two cents worth here, sorry.
I list DAMAGED stamps, because there are many of the buyers who will buy them as space fillers. I had one buyer in particular, who would only buy space fillers as long as they were priced accordingly. So please don't knock a seller who sells space fillers to the buyers who may thrive on them. MY 2 CENTS WORTH. Gramps and sorry if I offend you, when I do sell some.
You all should be ashamed of yourselves. This might be a case where somebody could not afford a copy of the stamp otherwise. Let's drive the collectors with poor resources away. Since the minimum Scott value for a common stamp is 0.25, then why not remove all listings for less than that? The site would need to alter their advertising from, for example,"25,000 stamps sold in the last week" to "15, 000 stamps sold in the last week". It would also have to lower the number of members, since as I said some people can't afford the so-called "VF" that so many stamps are falsely listed at. Some sellers seem to have "VF" appended to every stamp they list regardless of how good it is. So let's get rid of the extraneous "VF" listings while we're at it. That will whittle the number of listings even further. You people should be happy to be the ones to do that, since you want a site that is absolutely perfect, and not for the casual collector.You seem to have so much free time on your hands.
At HipStamp, we aim to provide the best online marketplace for stamp collectors.
There are certainly stamp collectors who do purchase lower priced stamps, well under $1, that may be in various degrees of condition. In fact, they make up a large part of our sales - and we certainly would not want to remove these types of items from HipStamp, when a large amount of our members use our site to purchase said items.
At the same time, there are also stamp collectors who collect higher priced items, and only better graded items. For these collectors, it would obviously be easier to find what they're looking for if the above said items were not included in what they were looking for. That's a completely valid point as well.
With that in mind, everyone should keep in mind that there's nothing wrong with both of the above cases being true - and there's no reason why HipStamp can not cater to both types of buyers. In many cases we do not try to provide a one fit solution, because there are different needs of different stamp collectors. For example, we offer a way to filter by price, Stamp Condition, and many other facets. We're also working on a feature which would allow members to save certain search facets for all of their searches (so for example you could potentially opt to never see items under $1).
I would also suggest that while continuing this particular topic, what would probably be most helpful to keep the conversation moving in a positive direction, but also to help us to improve HipStamp, would be to discuss what type of options and features could potentially be built to help cater to both of the above groups; and therefore improving HipStamp for every stamp collector.
Yes I agree Mark. If you could filter by price and grade that should help tremendously. I admit I came off strong in my earlier post and I apologize. At least I didn't use foul language. But the number of stamp collectors is dwindling and I would think that we would want to promote the hobby and the business it generates. After all, how many of us paid a couple hundred dollars for our first stamps when we started out? Catering to the big guys and little guys is one of the things I liked about BidStart - I'm a little guy and I am glad things are being made available to me.
THANK YOU, MARK, AND THE OTHER FOLKS AT HIPSTAMP
I have had someone in the past buy one 40-cent item and then pay my $1 shipping rate. I mentioned it to my wife, saying that surely there was more than one thing this guy would want, and when you're already paying the $1 for postage, why not add some more similarly-priced items, or call it, cheap stuff? She told me 1. Maybe that is really all that he wanted - I've done this at least a few times 2. Similar or maybe the same as #1, Maybe I was the only one that carried this particular stamp, and that was the one he wanted, but no other of my items. If he wants it bad enough, he'll buy just that one - I've done this
3. Maybe the amount payable was really all that he could afford at that time, and wanted to get at least something that week, or month. - I have done something similar, but would buy at least 2 or 3 things.
4. Maybe he just likes receiving mail! I haven't done this, at least that I remember. But the postage stamps the seller used to mail the package would tip the scales. Other things being equal he would get the purchase.
5. A feeble attempt at humor here. This is stretching things a bit, but...My wife also told me at some point that if I ever paid $50 for a stamp, that I would be in big trouble - well, I'm not saying if I've done this or not. Mum's the word.
I'm kinda on the fence on this one. While you see 'abuse,' I see a large selection of albeit a cheap stamp to choose from. The seller clearly states faults and his S&H is within normal limits. Is this likely to be a successful business model? Probably not, but I'll live and let live.
Let me ask you a couple of questions - do you collect cancels (fancy, town, date) ? How about color varieties? Perhaps you look for flyspecks (cracked plates, die varieties, etc.)? Once in awhile I sit down and go through these dealers "abusive" stock looking for items of interest. I usually pick up a hundred or two that I am interested in viewing up close and personal. I am usually rewarded with finding several things for my collection and enough for resale (internet. private treaty or dealers specializing in the unusual) to pay for my purchase a few times over (sometimes it only takes one of those 1c stamps to make it worthwhile). . These gentlemen have been around for a long time - why would you want to tell them what they can and cannot list? Do you want someone to decide what you are allowed to list for you? Easy enough to avoid - you can change the sort order, you can only allow 1 stamp per dealer, there are a lot of filters you can use. If you want to stick to looking at only pristine stock there are several dealers on here who cater to high end buyers - just browse their stores. But hold onto your wallet- you pay for quality - you won't find stamps at bargain prices.
Come on Carol, the vast majority of those in my example (and there are many others), should be put out of their misery and destroyed!!! If a seller insists on selling this kind of garbage, at least have pity on those who just want a nice stamp, and make large lots out of these. Might be able to get 10-20¢ per 100, or in this example per 1000.
And chances of finding a variety or worthwhile cancel are virtually nil. You can bet that the seller, that has invested the time to scan and list hundreds and thousands of the same thing, has made darn sure there is nothing to be found.
I dare say that the VAST majority of collectors are completely turned off by this kind of abuse, with many getting fed up, and going elsewhere.
This same kind of seller will also list dozens if not hundreds of the same inexpensive mint stamp, all looking exactly the same. Give me a break!
Some of us are actually trying to put food on the table and not showing off by listing hundreds and thousands of this stuff that drives potential customers away.
I'd agree it's hard for HipStamps to be all things to all collectors/dealers as evidenced by the range of comments here. I don't mind searching the general population of stamps, especially when aided by the filtering mechanisms in place. In that journey I may discover certain stores to spend more time browsing (relevant material, good prices) and some stores to write off for opposite reasons....much as I do in person at stamp shows. What might dis-incline me to frequent a venue, however, would be if the site became awash with material inwhich I have little interest. For example if I valued good quality tools, Harbor Freight would not immediately come to mind. If I wanted a utilitarian wristwatch, I'm not visiting the Cartier store. So far, I have no problem with HipStamps in this regard. For instance, I just experimented by typing in "906" in the United States category, then filtering for NH, single, then low to high pricing. 23 pictured results from 48c to $95 game up. Good variety (not overwhelming) and interestingly, some better-centered copies are the lower priced ones! Fun of the search and find with competitive capitalism shining through. Works for me.
"And chances of finding a variety or worthwhile cancel are virtually nil. You can bet that the seller, that has invested the time to scan and list hundreds and thousands of the same thing, has made darn sure there is nothing to be found."
You are absolutely, totally incorrect - none of those things jump out at you, they require knowledge and work to identify, I won't try to explain it to you because apparently you won't listen.. That said, both of these sellers were on Bidstart and I don't recall anyone ever complaining about them on the very active discussion boards we had there for many years. Why is this suddenly a problem - did you have a problem on Bidstart?
Yes I did Carol. Every now and then on bidStart I would receive comments to the effect that it wasn't enjoyable or worth their time wading through the refuse simply to find a decent stamp at a fair price.
"...they require knowledge and work to identify" I've been at this for over 50 years. I have over 200 shelf feet of good philatelic literature (Ashbrook, Chase, Brookman, Neinken, Johl, Brazer, Simpson, Perry, Turner, etc, etc) so I do think that I have a little bit of knowledge. I have specialized in the 3¢ 1851-57 issue for many years and I plate them. Might want to take a look at: http://www.stamps4collectors.com/info_pages/3cphotos.html If you ever see "ser" in script on the back of a 10, 11, or 25, I did the plating.
I have flyspecked classic US through the Washington/Franklins since before time began!
Those that are taking advantage of the great feature here on HipStamp of no listing fees, are doing a disservice to those who buy or sell here. I would suggest that instead of extremely unnecessary individual listings that make it unpleasant for many if not most, they make up large lots if they really want to sell some of this.
There are some here who are simply trying to make as many listings as humanly possible with no thought whatsoever given to generating revenue let alone an income. It is simply a game to them.
First let me apologize for shooting from the hip a bit. I'm a relative newcomer - collecting since the 50's but didn't start dealing until 1984. Had a mail order list and a monthly auction with around 150 lots (illustrated) advertised through Linn's. Also did the NYS show circuit and a bit in Pennsylvania and the Vermont show. a couple of times.Quit in the early 90's and opened an antique shop for a couple of years.Then had to get a paying job !.
I have used your ID site - it is wonderful. I moved a lot of lots back in the 80's and I bought one that included several hundred 11's (and a few 10's). Eventually one of my customers went through them to separate out the 10's and pick up a few plates he needed. It was a lot of fun and taught me a lot. I broke the emainder into two lots and sold them to other dealers...
That said - I still find useful items amidst the junque. I have two - inch and a half 3 ring binders full of "found" stuff, much of it from the "junque" dealers on this site plus I don't know how many glassines full of others amid the bankers boxes. None of the items were individual purchase items. I scanned 3 pages for examples. I reduced them to around 40 KB so the detail isn't there but hopefully they fit. If not - oh well.
The cheap 2 cent reds are great to put together color references. The top left stamp has a fairly hard to find North Attleboro "A" in cogwheel cancel that I picked up amidst the penny stuff on Bidstart.
very nice group Carol! the first two scans are worth quite a bit of $$$. the third not sure on. I also like the earliest printed precancels tho i do not buy any of this at the present time. just too busy with other things. even in the days long gone a nice cancel on a 2c stamp would fetch at least $5 and a fancy red ship cancel? maybe $100. pre printed cancels on civil war revenues are valuable also, depending.. but most people know about them :-) the best finds and deals are on the cheap early postals as you noted.
Comments
For example..... I am seven stamps short of completing my Portugal collection I started as a teenager. Over the years I have replaced the space fillers with quality copies. All that is left is a few low dollar stamps that I have been unable to find, not because they are rare but because they are not worth someone's time to list.
Note to sellers: Here is how buyers like me shop.... search for a missing stamp from our collection, get excited when we see one, add it to the cart, browse the rest of that sellers offerings looking for things on our want list, add matches to the cart up to my current stamp budget, checkout.
I was shopping here yesterday and I found a 20 cent stamp I needed. Bought everything else the seller had that was on my want list. Turned into a $64 purchase. Was that worth the seller's time?
I had replaced a space filler of a $1500 stamp that had perf problems and a thin. Before listing it for sale I decided to remove a substantial pencil mark from the back. I caught the edge and ripped the damn thing 3/4 the way down the center of the stamp. Still looked good from the front, listed it for $10 properly described and pictured, sold two days later, shipped it half way around the world and made a happy collector.
My point to all this is mot every collector is looking for only expensive stamps. Maybe I don't understand the purpose of Hipstamp. I thought this was a place for sellers and buyers to come together and enjoy a thriving marketplace to make sales and expand collections. With the attitude of some of the posters in this thread it seems I have that wrong. Could it be we need a "Hipstamp-Elite.com" for the stamp snobs that won't then be bothered by lowly collectors like me?
I'm afraid those days are over.
RIP OneEagle.
I'll think of him how you suggest, Jeri -- that's just wonderful, the way you described those two!
So let's get rid of the extraneous "VF" listings while we're at it. That will whittle the number of listings even further. You people should be happy to be the ones to do that, since you want a site that is absolutely perfect, and not for the casual collector.You seem to have so much free time on your hands.
There are certainly stamp collectors who do purchase lower priced stamps, well under $1, that may be in various degrees of condition. In fact, they make up a large part of our sales - and we certainly would not want to remove these types of items from HipStamp, when a large amount of our members use our site to purchase said items.
At the same time, there are also stamp collectors who collect higher priced items, and only better graded items. For these collectors, it would obviously be easier to find what they're looking for if the above said items were not included in what they were looking for. That's a completely valid point as well.
With that in mind, everyone should keep in mind that there's nothing wrong with both of the above cases being true - and there's no reason why HipStamp can not cater to both types of buyers. In many cases we do not try to provide a one fit solution, because there are different needs of different stamp collectors. For example, we offer a way to filter by price, Stamp Condition, and many other facets. We're also working on a feature which would allow members to save certain search facets for all of their searches (so for example you could potentially opt to never see items under $1).
I would also suggest that while continuing this particular topic, what would probably be most helpful to keep the conversation moving in a positive direction, but also to help us to improve HipStamp, would be to discuss what type of options and features could potentially be built to help cater to both of the above groups; and therefore improving HipStamp for every stamp collector.
Catering to the big guys and little guys is one of the things I liked about BidStart - I'm a little guy and I am glad things are being made available to me.
THANK YOU, MARK, AND THE OTHER FOLKS AT HIPSTAMP
I have had someone in the past buy one 40-cent item and then pay my $1 shipping rate. I mentioned it to my wife, saying that surely there was more than one thing this guy would want, and when you're already paying the $1 for postage, why not add some more similarly-priced items, or call it, cheap stuff?
She told me
1. Maybe that is really all that he wanted - I've done this at least a few times
2. Similar or maybe the same as #1, Maybe I was the only one that carried this particular stamp, and that was the one he wanted, but no other of my items. If he wants it bad enough, he'll buy just that one - I've done this
3. Maybe the amount payable was really all that he could afford at that time, and wanted to get at least something that week, or month. - I have done something similar, but would buy at least 2 or 3 things.
4. Maybe he just likes receiving mail! I haven't done this, at least that I remember. But the postage stamps the seller used to mail the package would tip the scales. Other things being equal he would get the purchase.
5. A feeble attempt at humor here. This is stretching things a bit, but...My wife also told me at some point that if I ever paid $50 for a stamp, that I would be in big trouble - well, I'm not saying if I've done this or not. Mum's the word.
Something is very wrong with allowing abuse like the above IMHO.
These gentlemen have been around for a long time - why would you want to tell them what they can and cannot list? Do you want someone to decide what you are allowed to list for you?
Easy enough to avoid - you can change the sort order, you can only allow 1 stamp per dealer, there are a lot of filters you can use. If you want to stick to looking at only pristine stock there are several dealers on here who cater to high end buyers - just browse their stores. But hold onto your wallet- you pay for quality - you won't find stamps at bargain prices.
And chances of finding a variety or worthwhile cancel are virtually nil. You can bet that the seller, that has invested the time to scan and list hundreds and thousands of the same thing, has made darn sure there is nothing to be found.
I dare say that the VAST majority of collectors are completely turned off by this kind of abuse, with many getting fed up, and going elsewhere.
This same kind of seller will also list dozens if not hundreds of the same inexpensive mint stamp, all looking exactly the same. Give me a break!
Some of us are actually trying to put food on the table and not showing off by listing hundreds and thousands of this stuff that drives potential customers away.
Steve - ser1851
You are absolutely, totally incorrect - none of those things jump out at you, they require knowledge and work to identify, I won't try to explain it to you because apparently you won't listen.. That said, both of these sellers were on Bidstart and I don't recall anyone ever complaining about them on the very active discussion boards we had there for many years. Why is this suddenly a problem - did you have a problem on Bidstart?
"...they require knowledge and work to identify"
I've been at this for over 50 years. I have over 200 shelf feet of good philatelic literature (Ashbrook, Chase, Brookman, Neinken, Johl, Brazer, Simpson, Perry, Turner, etc, etc) so I do think that I have a little bit of knowledge. I have specialized in the 3¢ 1851-57 issue for many years and I plate them. Might want to take a look at: http://www.stamps4collectors.com/info_pages/3cphotos.html If you ever see "ser" in script on the back of a 10, 11, or 25, I did the plating.
I have flyspecked classic US through the Washington/Franklins since before time began!
Those that are taking advantage of the great feature here on HipStamp of no listing fees, are doing a disservice to those who buy or sell here. I would suggest that instead of extremely unnecessary individual listings that make it unpleasant for many if not most, they make up large lots if they really want to sell some of this.
There are some here who are simply trying to make as many listings as humanly possible with no thought whatsoever given to generating revenue let alone an income. It is simply a game to them.
Steve - ser1851
I have used your ID site - it is wonderful. I moved a lot of lots back in the 80's and I bought one that included several hundred 11's (and a few 10's). Eventually one of my customers went through them to separate out the 10's and pick up a few plates he needed. It was a lot of fun and taught me a lot. I broke the emainder into two lots and sold them to other dealers...
That said - I still find useful items amidst the junque. I have two - inch and a half 3 ring binders full of "found" stuff, much of it from the "junque" dealers on this site plus I don't know how many glassines full of others amid the bankers boxes. None of the items were individual purchase items. I scanned 3 pages for examples. I reduced them to around 40 KB so the detail isn't there but hopefully they fit. If not - oh well.
The cheap 2 cent reds are great to put together color references. The top left stamp has a fairly hard to find North Attleboro "A" in cogwheel cancel that I picked up amidst the penny stuff on Bidstart.