eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎01-20-2020

So I figured out the best place for me to source is the UK eBay site. Most of what I've been buying that's any good is coming from the UK, so it stands to reason I should look there.

I looked there a couple of days ago and found an album. There was one picture of the cover, and 8 pictures of the inside (which did not show everything, just a sample). These are my favourites for sourcing because people don't pay top dollar for what they can't see and the album is not being sold by a stamp dealer, so they likely don't know the value, but I extrapolate on what I do see to take a guess at what else is there. I've had good surprises with this (but some not so good).

So it's a high price, like over $200. He is taking offers. I offered 20% discount. Maybe I should tell you that the 8 pictures were all very blurry and some of them I couldn't even tell what the stamps were. It also appeared he posted the same page three times. I thought 20% off on something that's a total mystery was very generous.

I did expect a counter offer. The last UK book I bought he wrote back that he was hoping for more money and told me what his best price was, it gave me the chance to accept or move on. This guy with the blurry pictures didn't even counter or decline. It would have been nice to know if he thought my offer was too low and "no thanks" so I can forget about it and move on.

Anyway this seller loses... and I spend $300 on two albums at auction that ended this afternoon. One was British commonwealth (old stuff, mix of new and used) and the other was British East Africa which looked like it went up until 1970 with many copies of items to make up some good lots.

I'm going to start making up listings next weekend (starting with the really easy stuff, the stuff that's not valuable but OK to ditch for $5-10). And I listed one complete album that came with a lot of other albums, but this one contains countries that are not collectable. I thought as a complete album I could get something towards what I paid (which turned out to be 35% of what I would have paid if I won this week.. sometimes buying on Christmas eve at auction works out).

C.

luckythewinner · ‎01-20-2020

@sin-n-dex wrote:
Anyway this seller loses..

If he didn't want to sell to you at that price then he didn't really lose anything.

sin-n-dex · ‎01-20-2020

@luckythewinner wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:
Anyway this seller loses..
If he didn't want to sell to you at that price then he didn't really lose anything.

He loses the sale and the opportunity to get my offer for an item that was very poorly represented... but I bid and buy based on how I feel, and I felt like offering him 80% of his asking price on a gamble that it might contain something good... however I didn't know if the album was any good, I was taking a risk.

C.

upgradedendmills · ‎01-20-2020

The tone of this post is a little different than the normal cheery posts you make. Not picking it apart in any way, it is just different. I buy all of my inventory on eBay and get some super deals by buying large lots that are either way underpriced or I think I see something that others don't. I have done very well with this, but, make mistakes doing it once in awhile also. I end up eating those mistakes every time and consider it part of the "game".

Your comment about 20% off being generous surprised me a little. Why not reach out and ask for better pictures or more details? Better for you and the seller. I never think a seller owes me a response or "thank you" but I am sure this is one of those things I look at differently. Thanks.

sin-n-dex · ‎01-21-2020

@upgradedendmills wrote:
The tone of this post is a little different than the normal cheery posts you make. Not picking it apart in any way, it is just different. I buy all of my inventory on eBay and get some super deals by buying large lots that are either way underpriced or I think I see something that others don't. I have done very well with this, but, make mistakes doing it once in awhile also. I end up eating those mistakes every time and consider it part of the "game".
Your comment about 20% off being generous surprised me a little. Why not reach out and ask for better pictures or more details? Better for you and the seller. I never think a seller owes me a response or "thank you" but I am sure this is one of those things I look at differently. Thanks.

I have issues that make me enjoy surprises.

Anyway, I have an update. The seller reached out to me this morning and asked if my offer was still good (it had expired). So I purchased it for the 20% off.

What I've discovered is that when I want to buy a collection and there's good pictures of every single stamp, I am bid up to the moon. (I got bid up this afternoon on another UK album, I was winning with 56 pounds, he bid me up and outbid me to 114 pounds, I guess he really wanted it). It was another album with not lots of information.

The upside is there's a new album every couple of days that I want to bid on, and I won two British Colonies albums from the UK yesterday that I'll very much look forward to seeing when they arrive.

On a cheery note... someone listed an album of all stuff before 1936, with only using the 12 photos that are offered. I saw one full page of QVictoria GB stamps and I got excited about what else was in the album. I won for $172 CAD (once converted into my currency), and the album was wonderful. I did so well with this choice I'm trying to repeat this experience with other albums.

My partner and I are going to start organizing all these stamps into lots starting Saturday. The thing I like best about this is it's giving us something interesting to talk about and do together. He looks at listings with me and comes to stamp shops when I go looking for material.

C.

upgradedendmills · ‎01-21-2020

There are three or four sellers here on eBay that I have dealt with for years. Two of them take really blurry pictures for their listings and I have mentioned it to them, but they don't want to change. They know I do this strictly for resale and continue to give me very reasonable prices. I buy from them is spite of the pictures based on my past purchases. Never get burned. They have access to things I don't and it works out great.

rpalma · ‎01-22-2020

My concern if I were purchasing the way you are is that the albums would be cherry picked.

That may not be a concern in your area, but when I was collecting comics and buying collections to split up, it was a constant problem.

It was so bad at times, that I bought a collection, came back to pick it up, and found some of the key comics missing. The guy had let his friend "grab a few favorites" after selling it to me and figured I wouldn't mind because there were a thousand comics and he'd only taken 5. Of course, those 5 were half the value of the collection.

I guess if you are legitimately buying from very casual sellers who don't know what they have, then this is less of a problem and I expect it's harder for a novice to check for keys in stamps than it is in comics.

upgradedendmills · ‎01-22-2020

My sellers usually throw a few extras in the box. The tools I sell are profitable if done right, but it can turn into a lot of effort to separate lots and sell individual pieces. I think my sellers buy large lots at auction and just want to make a few quick bucks reselling them. Same thing with people that have inherited or bought tools at estate sales.

sin-n-dex · ‎01-24-2020

@rpalma wrote:

My concern if I were purchasing the way you are is that the albums would be cherry picked.
That may not be a concern in your area, but when I was collecting comics and buying collections to split up, it was a constant problem.

It was so bad at times, that I bought a collection, came back to pick it up, and found some of the key comics missing. The guy had let his friend "grab a few favorites" after selling it to me and figured I wouldn't mind because there were a thousand comics and he'd only taken 5. Of course, those 5 were half the value of the collection.

I guess if you are legitimately buying from very casual sellers who don't know what they have, then this is less of a problem and I expect it's harder for a novice to check for keys in stamps than it is in comics.

With stamps, there are some that are high value, but those ones generally aren't in your mainstream album, so I wouldn't expect to get something like that. Generally I go for quantity, and when I see a number of good stamps, we're talking things that are worth $5 at most. But I sell by the page, so put a few $5 stamps on the page and all of a sudden I have a $40 listing for a page of stamps.

I actually found the people who didn't know what they had wanted more than the items are worth, and I seem to do a bit better at an auction if I'm lucky, but often I'm bid out of my price range. I also find when you see samples of the album, not the whole thing, you are more likely to get a deal. One album I bought, the sample was a page of GB Queen Victoria's, and some other countries old stamps. When i got the album, I found out the collector started in 1904, and seemed to stop doing it so much by 1920... but the latest stamp was around 1936.

One of the last albums I got was about 1950-75. When I think about that, it's a guy in his 80's who's either let go of his collection, or passed away and the kids sold it. I can't say I got a deal on it, but the quantity of stuff from 1950 to 1970 in this album will complement my 1936 and earlier album nicely so I can offer good quantity. There aren't that many different common stamps before 1936 from any one country, so my listing will lack bulk if I only offer really old stamps.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎01-24-2020

@upgradedendmills wrote:
There are three or four sellers here on eBay that I have dealt with for years. Two of them take really blurry pictures for their listings and I have mentioned it to them, but they don't want to change. They know I do this strictly for resale and continue to give me very reasonable prices. I buy from them is spite of the pictures based on my past purchases. Never get burned. They have access to things I don't and it works out great.

I've had some good success buying collections, and other times I think I might have gotten burnt... but it remains to be seen, i have to try and sell it first.

We've got out groupings of stuff divided so my partner is not involved in all collections, just whenever I buy an A-Z world album, or stuff in mint condition. I discovered that Mint Never Hinged is pretty rare because hinges occurred from when I was a kid and any time before. So the odds of getting a really mint stamp that's old is not super great because everyone hinged it to paper in their albums.

So i try to figure out which category my purchase falls under and I have a tracking sheet on which "lot" the incoming stamps belong to when sold. From there I'll see if I did OK. I think I'm going to find I lost money on my British Colonies Used stuff. I think I'll do OK on world stuff though since no one really wants to bother buying those albums. They cost a lot to ship. I think the best piece I bought was a bunch of leaves with pockets that had the dealer's misc junk thrown in (whatever he couldn't make into a collection somehow), and it was pretty awesome and purchased for a good price.

C.