Stamporama Online Auctions - Frequently Asked Questions

Why aren't my pictures showing up?
Could be a couple of reasons. Your pictures must be somewhere on the Internet, and accessible to the Stamporama server. This means that, before listing your auction, you must have uploaded your pictures to a server somewhere on the Internet. There are many free picture hosting services you can use, or you can upload your pictures to the Stamporama server -- whichever you find most convenient.

One site that seems to work well with Stamporama is Picture Hosting.org. It allows uploads 5 pictures at a time, gives you a personal gallery of your pictures where you can rename/delete/copy URLs and even email them to friends directly from that control panel. It also allows you to set up 5 galleries to organize your pictures. The site requires registration of a free account, but it only takes a couple of minutes.

If you are sure your pictures are available on the Internet (you have typed the URL into your browser's "Location" or "Address" box and have seen the picture), but they still don't show up when you preview your auction listing, your problem is probably the URL you put into your auction listing. A couple of things can go wrong here:

  • The URL must be complete, starting with the "http:// " part. For example: http://www.mypictureserver.com/mypicture.jpg
  • Watch the spelling and capitalization! UNIX servers (what Stamporama uses) are "case sensitive", unlike Windows. If you call a file "mypic.JPG" and ask Windows to find it telling Windows that it is called "mypic.jpg", Windows will find it with no problem -- but a UNIX server won't! As far as UNIX is concerned, those are two different files! Always try to cut and paste URL's, instead of typing them out. (Notepad in windows makes a convenient scratchpad for holding copied items.)
  • If it still doesn't work, where are you hosting your pictures? Some free hosting sites will not send your pictures to another server like Stamporama's. Check their terms of use.

How do I pay for lots I win?
That's between you and the seller of each lot. Stamporama does not get involved. Be sure to read the Auction Tutorial. Some sellers take credit cards, some require cash. If in doubt, contact the seller before bidding.

I sent an email (or address) change to the Secretary. Why didn't my auction registration change?
The Secretary maintains the main member listings, but the auction is separate from the member list maintained by the Secretary. You must maintain your auction registration information yourself by using the "Change Registration" link you will see on each auction page. Even after you change your registration, your old address with still be associated with any previous bids or lots posted for sale. Any new bids or lots posted will get the new changes.

Whoops! I just bid too high! How do I get out of it?
Our auction does not have any bid retraction or auction editing features, so be careful when bidding!

However, there is a feature which allows you to change your high bid if you are currently the high bidder. Let's say you just bid $50 when you meant to bid $5. To change your high bid, simply rebid immediately with the proper bid. There's one catch! The system will not let you change your bid to anything lower than the amount shown by "The Lowest You May Bid Is:". So if somebody already had an $8 bid being held by the system when you bid $50, you would be high bidder at $8.50 and the next available bid would be $9.00 - that would be the lowest number to which you can change your bid.

There is a reason for this. Techniques involving changing and retracting bids can be used by dishonest people to discover a bidder's high bid and to "shield" lots. Our system does not allow this, however it means you have to be careful when entering bids!

What currency are bids in?
All bidding is conducted in US$.

Why are my closing e-mails sometimes delayed?
The auction system sends closing e-mails to the buyer and seller with the final auction results. The system does not constantly check for lots past their closing times, it checks whenever a lot is viewed. If you get a closing e-mail 3 days after your lot was supposed to close, it just means nobody looked at the lot in that time. To force the system to send closing e-mails, click on your lots to view them. You will get the closing e-mail right away.

I made a mistake in my listing. Can I stop an auction?
Only the webmaster can stop an auction. He will do so at the request of the seller on any lot that has no bids. If it has a bid, the request will be referred to the Auctioneer who will adjudicate and the webmaster will follow his instructions. Remember that we are all volunteers, and may not be able to respond as quickly as you would like (your webmaster is frequently away for 2-3 days at stamp shows.) Please reserve this capability for emergency use. If we start to get requests for correcting spelling mistakes, we will have to re-think it.

If an auction lot expires without any bids, is there a way to re-post it?
No there is no function to re-list a lot. We intentionally left that feature out of the auction. Some people tend to misuse it, constantly re-listing a long string of items t hat never sell. This can end up "plugging up" a free auction site. That's what happened to Yahoo before they started charging listing fees. They had 300,000 lots of pure junk offered at retail prices because there was no effort nor expense involved on the part of the seller. Some sellers were happy selling only 5% of what they listed! We want the Stamporama auction to be a site where things start reasonably, and a high percentage sells.

The easiest way to re-list, is to call up your "Closed Auctions" list and copy the description from there. Open Notepad and paste the copy, or copies, there temporarily and then use those to copy again when posting new lots. In fact, the easiest way to post a bunch of lots is to create a quick template in Notepad. Then change the unique information and save the file with your own assigned lot number as a filename ie. mylot123.txt. Save a separate file for each lot in a folder where you can find them and you will have your quick way of reposting, and a fast way to make new lots without typing all the shipping and payment details every time - just start with your template for each lot. Then, when you are in the "Post a new Item" screen, open your Notepad file and copy and paste.

This FAQ is currently being built. Please ask your questions of the Auctioneer at teisler@aabt.org .