rrraphy

Retired Consultant APS#186030
20 Sep 2022
03:15:23pm

I took a quick look at who was posting books as of late.

70% or more are from just sellers who don't buy, or if they buy it seems very incidental.
Don't know how many are "dealers" or "collectors". It does not matter. We have members who buy, sell or both. (Thanks Ian)

With all the talk about sales levels and return to sellers, I am not sure I see a problem for sellers to list Approval books, even at item prices at 3c or 5c. I guess if you have extra stamps, selling them is better than just taking space in your file cabinet.
Most of the books are well laid out. Clearly presented, and if lacking order or cat numbers, one really cannot expect it at these prices. How well organized a book is, seems to be a personal matter. I call it a matter of pride, but then if you are profit motivated, then it is a matter of bottom line.

There are FEW problem books and they are problem books because they get away with it, and no one contacts the seller to get corrective measures. This then gets repeated and repeated again, and serves as a bad example, for others.
The goal of moderating is to HELP sellers get better material that sells better, and not punishing those who are at fault (often just by ignorance of th rules). It is often not difficult at all to get a better book which does not go counter to our rules. Rules are never enforced blindly!
Active moderation takes time, I know it. It pays off, as few sellers here refuse suggestions and there are just a handful of problem sellers. In my moderating experience, it happened once! Again, most problems are due to ignorance of the rules. A few suggestions have always resulted in corrective measures in future books. Thanks Michael for your clear explanations of the moderator role. You are SPOT ON! https://stamporama.com/discboard/disc_ma ...
This is certainly not cause for threatening to quit here!

So I don't see, looking at what is listed as of late, a problem for sellers or buyers. I see an occasional book quality issue that could be remedied, quietly behind the scene between an active moderator a seller willing to see it as constructive suggestion helping him/her sell better.

The sales figures shown by Ian are very instructive. I must add that one reason why people buy so much cheap stuff on Approvals is that it is a very convenient to fill a lot of low value slots in one collection...much more convenient than stamp by stamp on Auctions. Why someone would list a low value stamp on Auction is beyond my comprehension.
For Approvals, I don't think that many buyers would hesitate at 3c, 5c, 8c, or 10c. It is the convenience, and what was Approval set up to do. Fill those empty slots fast and easy! Does one really think that pricing at 8c instead of 3c is a reason not to buy something you need?
I think any stamp priced at 10c or less will sell, if one wants it, and I doubt that selling it at 3c or 5c will sell better than say at 8c or 10c.
On the other hand, resellers will pick up more of the cheap stuff..especially the MNH stamps, as they can relist them and make a hefty profit, but I have no idea if they are active here, given that most sales occur in the minutes that follow posting a new book.

Pricing as low as I see is just a collectors way of sharing their goodies. No one is getting rich, and that is not the goal it seems! It is a Club!


rrr..

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rrraphy

Retired Consultant APS#186030
20 Sep 2022
11:51:27pm

re: Approval Books. Who is selling (edited)

Not everything is measured in cents Ian.
How much more pleasure would we have if all books were well organized, even with just correcting the handful of bad ones (my definition) would increase the pleasure factor significantly!

The problem as you ask, and as I stated, is that we have a few books that could be improved significantly at very little cost, and made compliant with our suggested rules. Just a few, but they set a bad example. There is no need to always claim that doing nothing is better than doing something. Or that it would offer less choices to members, while it actually could offer more. How many members do not look at some of the sellers books, because "they are junk"?

rrr...

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Soundcrest

21 Sep 2022
08:44:53am

re: Approval Books. Who is selling (edited)

My two cents (for what it is worth) -

I am not a buyer here, and probably never will be. This is primarily due to the nature of this site. I have come to believe that most collectors here are general collectors, with an emphasis on inexpensive stamps. What I collect does not fall into that type of a stamp. When I actively collected, which means more than having an Ambassador album with a bunch of pictures to match, I used catalogs, and many times for the stamps themselves, I used quadrille pages. Now, if I were to get back into the collecting world, dust off my Germany albums and Non Scott Revenue albums, what would I be looking for?

Lets start with Germany -



A Michel listed K25. Certainly most people do not have Michel catalogs. For mine they are marked up so I know what I need. It is certainly possible that a seller here might just have one in his book, and simply knows this is a German stamp. However, there is no index. On the line, you could simply write "non Scott" or "not listed" or anything that gives a clue that this does not have a scott#. The same would hold true for German revenues. A notation of "revenue" or "not listed". Maybe I am different than most here, but I am not going to page German books looking to fill in my collection. The concept of no numbers is fine but I am totally stumped why you have two Germany sets on a page, B442-5 & 9N356-61 priced at 80 cents with no catalog number. You had to look it up. Otherwise 80 cents is a random number. Why not 20 cents? Or $2.00. Baffled is what I am.

The second would be Non Scott Revenues. I admit, Springer catalogs are not something people are going to own. I got lucky and purchased mine for a couple of bucks each back in the 70s. Not easy to find at any price these days. But, once again, listing catalog numbers in a US book would be helpful. On it it would say simply Non Scott Revenue. On the title page it would say "includes revenues" What I see now is 33 US books, none with the word revenue in the title, so I assume, no revenues. Then again, someone may have such a revenue as pictured below, BUT are in fear of the "Condition Police" so they never list the stamp. THAT is the problem with deciding what someone is allowed to buy:



Would I purchase it? Probably because being Non Scott it may very well be listed for a couple of bucks. However, this fails the condition test. Looks dirty, has a corner missing and maybe tears. Can't allow a member to purchase THAT. Their collection will be damaged by its presence. Right.

There is no way to know if many buyers are like me, on the sidelines due to simply not having the time to go through books, and match stamps in them to their albums. I will say though that of all those US books, the one that has the most views specifically says in the title Scott#. While that has not brought crowds to my books, and for that I attribute the cost of my books which do not contain 5&10 cent stamps, I believe that there would be even less looks without the word Scott#. People can go and look at my first page and if I have not screwed up the catalog number, know what is in the book. If they don't collect using catalog numbers fine. They may have looked at the book anyway. I have not figured out a way to put a thumbnail on the index. Might be something that could be done working with Google docs, but for now I'll stick with the way I do things. As I said - that is my two cents on why I am not a buyer, only a seller.

Greg

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re: Approval Books. Who is selling (edited)

I thought a man of your education would have a better command of the English language.

It is not "junk".

It is complete and utter garbage.

It is a total insult to the intelligence of any potential buyer.

Of course you are going to get plonkers trying to sell such despicable rubbish, that's humans for you.

My concern is you do not class the rest of us that make the odd mistake along with your shining example of a complete and utter disgrace.

However I would not let it bother me that much.

I would just ignore any of that persons books ad infinitum but unfortunately there are folkies that would buy the remaining seven stamps.

If the Management team don't/won't sort it out why should we get upset.

This subject comes up every year, nothing appears to have been done about it in all that time, accept it ain't going to be fixed and have a beer or two or three.

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re: Approval Books. Who is selling (edited)

The damage is one thing, but the price…15c…aye caramba!

Interestingly, his most recent 10 books have an average sales rate of 5.1% so has the market not already spoken?

BTW, now that you have outed (albeit not doxxed) the perpetrator as “K*****” perhaps he could respond with a defence?

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