Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Same here. These are pretending to be Approval Books but they are not.
We have a rule for worldwide Books:
G19. All items in any approval book must be directly related to philately and be in the chosen approval book category. World-wide and other non-listed categories must be posted in the "World Wide" category, and must be neatly arranged by country and/or topic.
G21. Multiple copies of an item are limited to three, except for offerings such as: collectible cancellation types, pre-cancels, color shades, etc., and must be placed SIDE BY SIDE on the same page.
G24. Approval books that are not compliant with the rules are subject to closure without prior notice.
Is it time for management to take a look at what is becoming in my opinion a worsening mess, and start disabling books where sellers slap stamps on pages in random order and call them "Approvals Books"? Is it really so hard to check them and act? We can live with Worldwide if there is a minimum effort made to apply the rules.
rrr...
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I second your views, they use to say if you can beat them, join them, well I added a third option, ignore them altogether. Can't remember last time I bought some stamps from any approval book but I can tell you when I will buy the next ones.
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I was thinking it was getting to be about time for Ralph's quarterly complaint about the sales platform.
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02:50:35pm
There are a handful of people who post well organized Worldwide books, those I check out, the others I almost always ignore. I don't want to list the people with well organized books in case I omit someone but I have picked up some wonderful stuff from these people. Some of the others are absolutely dreadful and look like someone just picked a handful of random stamps out of a box. I know time is involved but a bit of extra time spent might help them sell some of the items! Just my opinion!!
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Smauggie.. It would not be needed if rules were enforced. And shooting the messenger is just another way to justify doing nothing.
rrr...
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I think this is one of those subjects that is neither black nor white, but has a lot of grey. It is a fact that many sellers offer world wide books these days. I have been doing it (moderately) as well. It seems that there is a demand, judging from the sales and when I look to my own experience, sometimes it is a way to create a book where there is no other way if one wants to comply to the rules. For instance, I have been offering world wide books with (very) recent stamps. I know that many collectors look for the latest stamps, so it makes sense to bundle them. Otherwise they would end up 10 stamps in a book with rather uninteresting stamps that everybody already owns.
On the other hand, I also see books that are labeled worldwide but really contain just one or two countries with a few additions. Why not call it what it is: that particular country plus some others?
Finally, there is one seller who offers many WW books, poorly organized, but going through these books is treasure hunting because they often contain rare stamps for ridiculously low prices. Do I want to forbid this seller from putting such collections in the approvals? No. So that is what makes it so difficult, in my opinion at least.
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Some statistics
Total Approval items sold in March 2024.........19037 of which 8149 were from Worldwide Books ie 42.8% of total items sold.
Total Auction items sold in March 2024............1965.
The simple conclusions one can draw from the above is quite simply:-
a) "There is a demand for Worldwide Books" whether they be regimented or not.
b) The Approval system outsells the Auction system tenfold by number of items.
c) The idea for members to sell their duplicates to other collectors has been fullfilled way beyond initial expectations.
Like Topsy the Approval system has "growed and growed" mainly without major regimentation being enforced by the pedantic minority.
A big, big, big THANK YOU to all members who take the time and make the effort to produce Approval Books.
Some of us know the amount of time taken to produce a Book whether it be "detailed" or "just thrown together" and we appreciate the opportunity to add to our collection at very reasonable prices.
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06:49:35pm
Ian made some great points! The thing is that, except in rare cases where I just think something is just plain "cool", I stay away from newer material. I also have almost every common stamp for the areas I collect, which is why I went into precancels. So most of the material in world wide books has no interest to me. There is a fair bit of cheaper new material selling and most of it seems to be coming from the unorganized approval books. How about a compromise? Keep your approval books partially organized by country and put any duplicates together. That would take a bit longer but it does seem reasonable, at least to me! And you do see a fair bit of damaged material which is not supposed to happen!
I really shouldn't complain too much since I've picked up wonderful stuff from approval books!
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The key here is what harm is having disorganized world wide approval books doing to YOU. If looking at them bothers you don't look. I just put up 3 or 4 approval books and tried to keep them more or less in chronological order and it is not worth the effort. Bad enough a brokebn set ends up on 3 or 4 different pages but I understand there is no other easy way to do that. Why do you want to penalize all the people who do enjoy them? (JanSimon, Ian, ME and others. There is material in them that is just not available elsewhere. There are incredible bargains for those who like to buy at a very small percentage of catalog value. Why do you want to spoil what some members enjoy - just don't look at them.
Continually destroying the things people find enjoyable will make us end up like the Sheriff in Australia - is that what we want?
Sorry but if it is working the only thing tweaking will do is make it worse.
Sorry, off to take my meds.
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Approvals
I have been a vocal critic of the Worldwide Approval books for a long time. From the very earliest days of Approvals, when Worldwide was NOT allowed as a category, for well discussed reasons, it was felt that Worldwide would become unmanageable and create a a garbage dump. Current Management has chosen to keep worldwide. That is what we have. I too have a box of stamps that I can slap on pages in random order, and let the buyer sieve through if he feels like it. At stamp show, this is called the grab box and stamps are usually priced in the 5c to 10c range.
Same here. These are pretending to be Approval Books but they are not.
We have a rule for worldwide Books:
G19. All items in any approval book must be directly related to philately and be in the chosen approval book category. World-wide and other non-listed categories must be posted in the "World Wide" category, and must be neatly arranged by country and/or topic.
G21. Multiple copies of an item are limited to three, except for offerings such as: collectible cancellation types, pre-cancels, color shades, etc., and must be placed SIDE BY SIDE on the same page.
G24. Approval books that are not compliant with the rules are subject to closure without prior notice.
Is it time for management to take a look at what is becoming in my opinion a worsening mess, and start disabling books where sellers slap stamps on pages in random order and call them "Approvals Books"? Is it really so hard to check them and act? We can live with Worldwide if there is a minimum effort made to apply the rules.
rrr...
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re: I am sooooo tired.....
I second your views, they use to say if you can beat them, join them, well I added a third option, ignore them altogether. Can't remember last time I bought some stamps from any approval book but I can tell you when I will buy the next ones.
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re: I am sooooo tired.....
I was thinking it was getting to be about time for Ralph's quarterly complaint about the sales platform.
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
05 Apr 2024
02:50:35pm
re: I am sooooo tired.....
There are a handful of people who post well organized Worldwide books, those I check out, the others I almost always ignore. I don't want to list the people with well organized books in case I omit someone but I have picked up some wonderful stuff from these people. Some of the others are absolutely dreadful and look like someone just picked a handful of random stamps out of a box. I know time is involved but a bit of extra time spent might help them sell some of the items! Just my opinion!!
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Login to Like.
Approvals
re: I am sooooo tired.....
Smauggie.. It would not be needed if rules were enforced. And shooting the messenger is just another way to justify doing nothing.
rrr...
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: I am sooooo tired.....
I think this is one of those subjects that is neither black nor white, but has a lot of grey. It is a fact that many sellers offer world wide books these days. I have been doing it (moderately) as well. It seems that there is a demand, judging from the sales and when I look to my own experience, sometimes it is a way to create a book where there is no other way if one wants to comply to the rules. For instance, I have been offering world wide books with (very) recent stamps. I know that many collectors look for the latest stamps, so it makes sense to bundle them. Otherwise they would end up 10 stamps in a book with rather uninteresting stamps that everybody already owns.
On the other hand, I also see books that are labeled worldwide but really contain just one or two countries with a few additions. Why not call it what it is: that particular country plus some others?
Finally, there is one seller who offers many WW books, poorly organized, but going through these books is treasure hunting because they often contain rare stamps for ridiculously low prices. Do I want to forbid this seller from putting such collections in the approvals? No. So that is what makes it so difficult, in my opinion at least.
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06:15:39pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: I am sooooo tired.....
Some statistics
Total Approval items sold in March 2024.........19037 of which 8149 were from Worldwide Books ie 42.8% of total items sold.
Total Auction items sold in March 2024............1965.
The simple conclusions one can draw from the above is quite simply:-
a) "There is a demand for Worldwide Books" whether they be regimented or not.
b) The Approval system outsells the Auction system tenfold by number of items.
c) The idea for members to sell their duplicates to other collectors has been fullfilled way beyond initial expectations.
Like Topsy the Approval system has "growed and growed" mainly without major regimentation being enforced by the pedantic minority.
A big, big, big THANK YOU to all members who take the time and make the effort to produce Approval Books.
Some of us know the amount of time taken to produce a Book whether it be "detailed" or "just thrown together" and we appreciate the opportunity to add to our collection at very reasonable prices.
10 Members
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
05 Apr 2024
06:49:35pm
re: I am sooooo tired.....
Ian made some great points! The thing is that, except in rare cases where I just think something is just plain "cool", I stay away from newer material. I also have almost every common stamp for the areas I collect, which is why I went into precancels. So most of the material in world wide books has no interest to me. There is a fair bit of cheaper new material selling and most of it seems to be coming from the unorganized approval books. How about a compromise? Keep your approval books partially organized by country and put any duplicates together. That would take a bit longer but it does seem reasonable, at least to me! And you do see a fair bit of damaged material which is not supposed to happen!
I really shouldn't complain too much since I've picked up wonderful stuff from approval books!
Login to Like
this post
07:12:58pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: I am sooooo tired.....
The key here is what harm is having disorganized world wide approval books doing to YOU. If looking at them bothers you don't look. I just put up 3 or 4 approval books and tried to keep them more or less in chronological order and it is not worth the effort. Bad enough a brokebn set ends up on 3 or 4 different pages but I understand there is no other easy way to do that. Why do you want to penalize all the people who do enjoy them? (JanSimon, Ian, ME and others. There is material in them that is just not available elsewhere. There are incredible bargains for those who like to buy at a very small percentage of catalog value. Why do you want to spoil what some members enjoy - just don't look at them.
Continually destroying the things people find enjoyable will make us end up like the Sheriff in Australia - is that what we want?
Sorry but if it is working the only thing tweaking will do is make it worse.
Sorry, off to take my meds.
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