Tips for finding and buying stamps on eBay™

By Jim Watson

Adding to a stamp collection through offerings on eBay is easy, fun, and often provides bargains. First, one should learn how to navigate the pages in eBay. If you haven't already become an accomplished eBay surfer, take the eBay Tutorial now. It will introduce you to the many ways of making use of eBay resources.

Using Listings to Find Stamps

To browse all the listings by title, click on the Site Map link which is at the top of most every eBay page. By the way, these links can lead you to everything you want to know about eBay. Bookmark the page and come back to review all the items when you can. For now, find the link entitled Category Overview. This is a complete listing of all the categories and subcategories of eBay listings. Bookmark this page if you have any interests other than stamps. Look around on the page until you find the Coins & Stamps category. Click on this link and you'll find the top page with all the stamps sub-categories.

Near the center of the Coins&Stamps category page are a group of links in small print entitled Current| |New Today| |Ending Today| |Completed| |Going, Going, Gone. The Current link lets you view all the items currently being offered in the category starting with the newest listings. The New Today link lets you review all the items added to the category in the last day. The Ending Today link lists all the items being offered in the next 24 hours starting with those ending soonest. The Completed link lists all the items in the category in the last 30 days. The Going, Going, Gone link lists all the items to be closed in the next 3 hours.

These same options may be selected at the top page of each subcategory. When you have selected the subcategory you wish to view and the type of listing, you will see all the selected items in that subcategory. There may be a number of pages so be sure to note the page links (page numbers) in the center of the first page you see.

As you browse the listings click on an item of interest to see the detailed auction page. If it interests you, bookmark it for future action or bid on it immediately, if that is your style. Often there may be more than one item which may satisfy the need and you ought to review the ones available before making a bid. You also ought to check the feedback of the seller before bidding to confirm that the transaction can be expected to be satisfactory. After you have reviewed and, if interested, bookmarked the auction page, use the back button on your browser to reload the listings page. Don't forget there may be more than one page to look at so watch the page numbers at the bottom and top of the page to keep track of your location and move to the next page.

One of the tricks to speed browsing the categories is to bookmark the start point for each category you wish to review regularly. Once bookmarked, you can return to them whenever you wish. Another trick to keep track of things is to add notes to bookmarks using the edit function. You can keep track of where you want to start reviewing a list the next time and you can add notes to jog your memory about a bookmarked lot. One good exercise is to add the price realized to an item in which you are interested to give you a future guideline for price expectations.

Using Search to Find Stamps

The Search system is one of the most useful tools to help find information from the hundreds of thousands of current and completed stamp auctions on eBay. It is accessible by clicking on the Search. link at the top of nearly every eBay page. Here's how search can help an ardent stamp collector or seller have more fun and be more effective.

The first and most obvious way is by using the Title Search to find an item to buy. For example, if you want to find the offerings of the souvenir sheet issued for the International Philatelic Exhibition of 1926 (the so-called White Plains sheet) all you have to do is enter the Scott Catalogue number of the item — 630 —in the Title search block and hit the search button. Up will come several items currently being offered.

One trick you should learn is to use the categories to narrow your search. This will result in fewer extraneous items. The previous search was limited to the U.S Stamps subcategory. Here's how you can make it work for you. From the eBay home page, you can select the Coins & Stamps category. Then, you can choose Stamps or one of its subcategories (World or US). Of course, you can choose any of the other categories. You can search for key words within any of the categories by clicking in the search dialogue box on this page after you have checked the Search only in this category box and, if you wish, selected the Search within titles and descriptions box.

If you wish to be sure you have all of the 630 souvenir sheets, you might search for philatelic +exhibition and see if that finds any which were missed by the first search. Again you can speed up this search by starting the search at the current U.S. subcategory and selecting the box that limits the search to the U.S. subcategory. One of the features of these searches is that they can be bookmarked and repeated at a subsequent date.

Another example is to find all the offerings of a country. Try jamaica to find all the offerings of Jamaica. This particular search is limited to the World subcategory and searches both titles and text. Of course, if the item title misspells Jamaica, then you won't find it. Lots of McDonald's Teenie Beanies offered as MacDonald items end up in searches for author John D. MacDonald. These items don't often have offers. The misspelled items are never found in McDonald searches. (And the John D. McDonald books aren't found in the macdondald search, either!)

Still another search is for a country with several names in the title. For example, a search for german east africa in the title will find all the offerings from this former German colony.

Other search thoughts: search on a cachet maker like Artcraft; search on uss for ship cancels; search on 740 to find the perforated U.S. National Park series 740-749. It is always better to find a short word that is common to all of the target items than to spell out sesveral required words. People often leave out key words or misspell them making the search miss the item. Further, the search will only find the items which have the same words in the same sequence. The wording is, of course dependent on the auction writer.

Search can also be used to find the going price of a particular item. To find data to answer this question click on the link for Search Completed Auctions, which appears on the Search Results page. This will give the history of such items sold in the past 30 days and the offer strategy can be based on the results. This has one limitation, however. Often the pictures that accompany the auction pages have been taken off the servers and are no longer available. This makes careful comparison of the quality of the offerings difficult. Also one needs to be sure that the items really did sell to determine the going price.

One of the nice features of these searches is that one can bookmark a search and repeat it tomorrow or next week. That way, one can keep looking for the desired stamp. Just one note of caution: Sometimes eBay changes the server which has the search function on it. That will invalidate your bookmark. It pays to check occasionally to make sure you're still looking in the right spot.

Next, to try a little more complicated problem. Suppose one wants to find a Scott's catalogue to buy and would like to look over what is available. Having a Scott's catalogue is highly recommended for the new collector. Start by searching for scott. That's a surprise! What a load of Scotts! Well, one just must do better than that. What is really desired is a scott catalogue so let's try that. Well, that's better but it still doesn't give too many. Scott's Catalogues are often offered as catalog that is a likely misspelling of what Scott thinks is right. Further, sometimes only Scott is used. Can this information be combined in a search? Yes, it can. The asterisk * can be used as a wild card. So now search for the combination scott* +catalog*. Now look what is found! Looks like one to bookmark!

Now, try to find out what is being offered by a favorite dealer. Just enter his user id in the Seller Search section and click away. His current offerings appear in no time at all. You can also find what he offered in the last 2 weeks or month if you wish.

To learn more about ways to make Search work for you, click on the more tips link on the search page for more information.

Now, go try some of these ideas to help find items of interest. You can also determine fair prices to pay. Good hunting!

Bidding and Winning

The first step after finding a lot which you might want to buy is to read the auction page carefully. Is the item exactly what you want? Since the lot may be described in philatelic terms, you may have to do some research. Try the glossary if you find a word that is unfamiliar. You also should evaluate the terms of payment and shipping and handling expenses. Also, before making a bid, check the seller's feedback. You want to be confident in having a successful purchase.

If you have a question or are unclear about something in a stamp's description, you may want to email the seller for more information before placing your bid, especially for more expensive stamps. Ask specific questions — most sellers are happy to answer them. In particular, you may want to ask about defects so that the burden of disclosure is on the seller, and you are not unpleasantly surprised when you receive the item.

Once you have decided what you are willing to pay for the stamp, place a bid! You can set your bid for the maximum you are willing to spend. The eBay proxy bidding system will then place your bid at the lowest amount that ensures you are the high bidder. Since the current high bidder may have bid a higher maximum amount, your initial bid may have to be raised by the system up to maximum bid. If someone subesequently bids against you, eBay automatically raises your bid so that you remain the high bidder until the bid amount reaches your maximum bid. You can also place a bid at the next required increment and decide on a case-by-case basis whether you want to raise your bid when someone outbids you.

At the conclusion of the auction eBay will notify the seller and high bidder. The seller will then contact the high bidder to arrange for payment and shipping of the stamp. Often the buyer and seller contact each without waiting for the eBay End of Auction notice. It is a good idea to keep in touch when completing actions like mailing checks and shipping items. Typically, the seller will ship the stamp as soon as the payment has been received (if a money order is sent) or, when a check received has cleared the bank. There are escrow services available for a small fee if the buyer would like to see the stamp and accept it before payment is released. If the stamp is not accepted, the buyer must return it quickly and the escrow service returns the funds to the buyer. See "After the Auction" for more details.

When you receive your stamp, enjoy! And if the seller was prompt and courteous, give positive feedback so that other users will know this person is a good seller to work with!

For more helpful information, refer to "Tips for Buyers" in the Buyer Services.

The preceding material was written by Jim Watson. These are the opinions of the author, not the opinions of eBay, and therefore eBay does not validate the accuracy of or endorse these opinions.

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