Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I have always collected US but I had begun to get more than a little interested by world wide stamps in no small part because of Mitch's "Page of the Day" chronicles and Lars, Baxter and others who have been pursuing the one stamp per country effort.
To get back in the game, I had a brilliant idea of starting up with an approval service. My thinking is that 2 or 3 times a month I could get a nice selection of stamps, open the package with my regular mail over dinner, admire my new acquisitions and then file the shipment in my desk until a later date where I could organize the collection, mount the stamps etc.
So my criteria for approvals are as follows:
1. Any world wide stamps mint or used as long as they are listed in the Scott Classic Specialized Worldwide Catalog 1850-1940.
2. All Stamps should be listed by Scott number.
3. New or used stamps are fine but emphasis should be placed on more affordable sets and short sets.
So I called up on of the better known dealers (not the big "you know who" dealer that sells inverted Jennys and Z grills) but a very well known name besides. A very personable young lady answered and I provided my APS number and detailed my stamp goals and asked her if I could start receiving approvals. She was very nice and assured me that a stamp specialist with decades of experience would be assembling custom shipments that I would love.
Fast forward three weeks and I recieved the following three stamps in an envelope:
1. C7 US unused $4.75
2. 372 US unused so off center I wouldn't put it in my album $15.50
3. 38 Senegal "foreign set" just 1 stamp included $7.50
Disenheartening to say the least. In my mind, I envisioned getting all of these neat early engraved stamps from all over the world. Half of that catalog is valued at $1 or less.
My questions are: Am I too optimistic? Is this what I can expect from an approval service? Is it worth giving it another shot?
Thanks in advance to anyone with helpful insights!
Ernie
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The first selections from approval dealers are usally very sparse. I was an approval dealer many years ago. The reason is that a large percentage of approval shipments are never returned by the collectors requesting them. It can take several approval shipments before you really start seeing better items. Being an approval dealer is very nerve wracking as you wonder if the stamps will get returned to you, if the collector will pay for the stamps, and you worry about when will the collector decide to not return a selection. The theives know that after a time a good selection will come their way. That is what they are looking for. Online sales were the best thing that ever came along as it eliminated the stress of selling by approvals. Many dealers still do it, and they are fantastic once they learn to trust you. You won't get an approval selection every other week. That is rare. It is more like every four to six weeks or more from when your return is received.
To get what you want quicker, contact the APS Sales Division, and ask to get added to a circuit, or you can sign up online for that. Tell them that you haven't bought from the circuits before (or in a while), and ask if it is possible for them to send you a direct circuit to try it out. They may wave the $5 service fee for the direct circuit.
You can also ask for a direct clearance circuit where you'll get stamps for 75% or even more off catalog. You can't pick and choose the stamps, however, as you have to buy the entire circuit book, but then you can always sell the duplicates.
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01:40:34am
Over the last ten or twelve years, not only have most brick and mortar stamp shops close their oos, but one after another, I've watched as approval dealers with whom I had done business for years, some such as House of Stamps in Cincinnati, for decades, left the business.Some retired, some just tired, and some passed away, while a few, with adventuresome minds, turned to and embraced the internet.
Why physically send stamps in a paper envelope to be damaged, pawed over and sometimes unexpectedly lost, when once scanning files were mastered, the customer could see the scan, read any qualifying proviso, and pay up front ?
It is a miracle, at least to collectors of my generation who had barely mastered how to use a rotary dial phone.
I'd love to find an old time dealer, not under a marble slab, who is still sending out stamps for approval on paper pages. Of course such a gentle person would likely be still using his weatherbeaten, well thumbed, 1987 Scott's Catalog.
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You may be better off trying to finding someone disposing of their collection. They will more likely have complete sets.
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04:13:57pm
" .... You may be better off trying to finding someone
disposing of their collection. They will more likely
have complete sets. ...."
While I certainly acquire enough issues through SoR,
every three or four months I find a lot at an auction
filled with two or three previously owned albums,
a mass of on or off paper singles and blocks, a pile
of sorted glassines or 102 cards that provides hours
of collecting pleasure.
Although such albums are likely to have been stripped of
things of real value, complete sets are common and
occasionally up pops some long sought after stamp,
the kind that is dirt cheap but for some mysterious
reason I seldom see for sale anywhere.
Sometimes when I first open the carton, I get the
sinking feeling I made a mistake, and then as I dig
into the mass of material that the auction's lotter
only glanced at between coffee breaks, the pleasure
generating endorphins switch on and begin to surge
about in unmitigated glee.
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If the budget range is $25 circuits might not be too useful as you will spend $8 on mail costs alone. I think if i was to try approvals I would go with some smaller dealer. the bigger they are the more junk they try to offload and their prices are very high since they have a lot of overhead.
Personally i'm more into cdj's residual approach. If you have nothing specific in mind it has a higher entertainment value.
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Like Charlie I get most of my "stuff" at auctions
I always keep some for my own collection and the rest goes back into a different auction house or here on stamporama.
Over the last couple of months I have been able to add to my Portugal collection quite substantially, accquired an almost complete collection of Bosnia Herzogovenia, a nice laid out collection of Space thematics and 1000's of duplicates to pop in the approvals here.
Its all great fun and yes I am an auction junkie.
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09:33:58pm
So for the past couple of years I have found myself very busy and not able to invest in my hobbies like I have in the past. The longer hours at work and then coming home to take care of the house and then deal with a very demanding golden retriever has left me a bit worn out and not up to the searching the internet, mail bid sales and other outlets that I used to really enjoy.
I have always collected US but I had begun to get more than a little interested by world wide stamps in no small part because of Mitch's "Page of the Day" chronicles and Lars, Baxter and others who have been pursuing the one stamp per country effort.
To get back in the game, I had a brilliant idea of starting up with an approval service. My thinking is that 2 or 3 times a month I could get a nice selection of stamps, open the package with my regular mail over dinner, admire my new acquisitions and then file the shipment in my desk until a later date where I could organize the collection, mount the stamps etc.
So my criteria for approvals are as follows:
1. Any world wide stamps mint or used as long as they are listed in the Scott Classic Specialized Worldwide Catalog 1850-1940.
2. All Stamps should be listed by Scott number.
3. New or used stamps are fine but emphasis should be placed on more affordable sets and short sets.
So I called up on of the better known dealers (not the big "you know who" dealer that sells inverted Jennys and Z grills) but a very well known name besides. A very personable young lady answered and I provided my APS number and detailed my stamp goals and asked her if I could start receiving approvals. She was very nice and assured me that a stamp specialist with decades of experience would be assembling custom shipments that I would love.
Fast forward three weeks and I recieved the following three stamps in an envelope:
1. C7 US unused $4.75
2. 372 US unused so off center I wouldn't put it in my album $15.50
3. 38 Senegal "foreign set" just 1 stamp included $7.50
Disenheartening to say the least. In my mind, I envisioned getting all of these neat early engraved stamps from all over the world. Half of that catalog is valued at $1 or less.
My questions are: Am I too optimistic? Is this what I can expect from an approval service? Is it worth giving it another shot?
Thanks in advance to anyone with helpful insights!
Ernie
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this post
10:19:57pm
re: Stamp Approval Services
The first selections from approval dealers are usally very sparse. I was an approval dealer many years ago. The reason is that a large percentage of approval shipments are never returned by the collectors requesting them. It can take several approval shipments before you really start seeing better items. Being an approval dealer is very nerve wracking as you wonder if the stamps will get returned to you, if the collector will pay for the stamps, and you worry about when will the collector decide to not return a selection. The theives know that after a time a good selection will come their way. That is what they are looking for. Online sales were the best thing that ever came along as it eliminated the stress of selling by approvals. Many dealers still do it, and they are fantastic once they learn to trust you. You won't get an approval selection every other week. That is rare. It is more like every four to six weeks or more from when your return is received.
To get what you want quicker, contact the APS Sales Division, and ask to get added to a circuit, or you can sign up online for that. Tell them that you haven't bought from the circuits before (or in a while), and ask if it is possible for them to send you a direct circuit to try it out. They may wave the $5 service fee for the direct circuit.
You can also ask for a direct clearance circuit where you'll get stamps for 75% or even more off catalog. You can't pick and choose the stamps, however, as you have to buy the entire circuit book, but then you can always sell the duplicates.
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
20 Oct 2019
01:40:34am
re: Stamp Approval Services
Over the last ten or twelve years, not only have most brick and mortar stamp shops close their oos, but one after another, I've watched as approval dealers with whom I had done business for years, some such as House of Stamps in Cincinnati, for decades, left the business.Some retired, some just tired, and some passed away, while a few, with adventuresome minds, turned to and embraced the internet.
Why physically send stamps in a paper envelope to be damaged, pawed over and sometimes unexpectedly lost, when once scanning files were mastered, the customer could see the scan, read any qualifying proviso, and pay up front ?
It is a miracle, at least to collectors of my generation who had barely mastered how to use a rotary dial phone.
I'd love to find an old time dealer, not under a marble slab, who is still sending out stamps for approval on paper pages. Of course such a gentle person would likely be still using his weatherbeaten, well thumbed, 1987 Scott's Catalog.
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this post
re: Stamp Approval Services
You may be better off trying to finding someone disposing of their collection. They will more likely have complete sets.
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
20 Oct 2019
04:13:57pm
re: Stamp Approval Services
" .... You may be better off trying to finding someone
disposing of their collection. They will more likely
have complete sets. ...."
While I certainly acquire enough issues through SoR,
every three or four months I find a lot at an auction
filled with two or three previously owned albums,
a mass of on or off paper singles and blocks, a pile
of sorted glassines or 102 cards that provides hours
of collecting pleasure.
Although such albums are likely to have been stripped of
things of real value, complete sets are common and
occasionally up pops some long sought after stamp,
the kind that is dirt cheap but for some mysterious
reason I seldom see for sale anywhere.
Sometimes when I first open the carton, I get the
sinking feeling I made a mistake, and then as I dig
into the mass of material that the auction's lotter
only glanced at between coffee breaks, the pleasure
generating endorphins switch on and begin to surge
about in unmitigated glee.
2 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
04:44:49pm
re: Stamp Approval Services
If the budget range is $25 circuits might not be too useful as you will spend $8 on mail costs alone. I think if i was to try approvals I would go with some smaller dealer. the bigger they are the more junk they try to offload and their prices are very high since they have a lot of overhead.
Personally i'm more into cdj's residual approach. If you have nothing specific in mind it has a higher entertainment value.
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10:54:00am
Auctions - Approvals
re: Stamp Approval Services
Like Charlie I get most of my "stuff" at auctions
I always keep some for my own collection and the rest goes back into a different auction house or here on stamporama.
Over the last couple of months I have been able to add to my Portugal collection quite substantially, accquired an almost complete collection of Bosnia Herzogovenia, a nice laid out collection of Space thematics and 1000's of duplicates to pop in the approvals here.
Its all great fun and yes I am an auction junkie.
Login to Like
this post