For broadcast on CBS Radio Network stations 
March 18-19, 2000:


Buying and Selling on eBay.


The Stamp Collecting Report, I'm Lloyd de Vries.


The online auction site has become such a force in stamp 
collecting that every Internet philatelic forum spends 
time discussing it and many print publications, too. 
Scams, sales, even when eBay changed the way it 
categorized stamps, causing a major furor online. eBay 
retrenched, by the way, a spokesman telling me it was a 
mistake.


Yes, there are other online auction sites -- Boxlot, 
Yahoo, Amazon -- but eBay is the 500-pound canary among 
them.


For decades, American Philatelic Society members have 
been mailing stamps to other members around the country 
in what's called "circuits." Eighteen months later, if 
the material sold, the owner would get paid.


That's not good enough any more, and sales are slumping. 
The reason? The Internet, online auctions like eBay in 
particular. That's prompted the Society, at 53-thousand 
the largest single group of stamp collectors in the U-S, 
into looking at offering an online net-price sales system.


And that's stamp collecting this week. 

I'm Lloyd de Vries, CBS News.


----------------------------------------------------------
Go to Previous Report
Go to Next Report

Go to Report Index
 
Return to Virtual Stamp Club Home Page