Welcome! Hope you're enjoying the website. While a lot of it will change only a little from month to month, I hope to be able to keep this page current and let you know just what's going on. Enjoy!
January 16, 2011 - Once again, it's been a year since the last update. However, it's time to announce some good news and bad news. The bad news is that the trade value offered for most stamps will go down. However, the good news is that I will be offering more material at lower prices.
Trade values reduced - Trade values will slowly be reduced from 10-90% on areas which I won't be sorting for a while. Right now, the only reduction is H countries, but that's 90%. In addition, reductions will apply to mint postage as well as to other stamps. However, mint postage will still be accepted at full face value if it is sent in payment for approvals.
Reduced clearance approvals - Clearance approvals, which were 30% off regular price, will now be priced even lower, usually 40% off or more. In addition, grab bags will be even cheaper. A very large $1,000 grab bag will be over 50% off most of the time.
Reduced box lots - Material in box lots will be broken down weekly and offered at a discount from my book value, generally over 30%. This will apply to all material, even mint postage.
July 21, 2008 - Paperless invoicing is now the standard. If you want to receive paper approval reporting forms, statements or credit notes you have to pay for them. Each printed form is now TV 0.13, and postage for mailing statements and credit notes is postage+25% in trave value. Everything from approval statements to reminders should be zipping back and forth by e-mail. There are several reasons for this change, from the postage costs to send this stuff back and forth, to the difficulty some customers have filling out the approval reporting forms, to communication problems when you rely solely on the mail. See the webdox page for details.
January 16, 2011 - The Canadian dollar is still rising not only against the U.S. dollar but against most other major currencies. Unfortunately, that means lower relative trade values for mint postage (which are based on face value), but should also mean lower prices for mint stamps. For example, Greece mint is priced at 90% of catalogue value in most cases.
UPDATE! March 24, 2012 - I finally finished sorting the "L" countries and I'm moving on to the "M" countries starting this week.
January 25, 2004 - In order to publicize more of my box lots and better items, I have opened an Ebay store. It is just getting started, but over 20 better stamps and three box lots are listed. Also listed are mixture and grab bags. While most of them are being offered through this site, Ebay offers things like buyer protection and easier Paypal use. Please check it out - I can even send the better singles & sets on approval, although box lots don't have return privileges.
January 10, 2010 - The demand list has been completely updated and is now a Google Document spreadsheet. Luckily, that means more of it is in English and not cryptic grade letters.
UPDATE! March 21, 2012- Postage rates have been set for 2010. For first-class mail up to 30g, it's $0.61 in Canada, $1.05 to the U.S., and $1.80 anywhere else. Remember, you are charged this amount if you have unused trade credit and you don't send further stamps for credit or you get a mailed statement or credit note rather than having it e-mailed to you.
January 10, 2010 - Finances are still stable, although I'm always looking for improvement. I lost money last year, but not a tremendous amount. I've actually got a cushion for a rainy day.
SPECIAL ORDERS - Are running very quickly. I'm targetting 2-3 months, and most orders, except for the difficult ones, are being filled in that time frame. The difficult ones are customers with very limited collecting interests that are very much in demand - it's tough to find that material. Mint topicals, used stamps and better Russia are getting particularly difficult to find.
CASH PAYMENTS - Since most of the money going into the business is going out to my bankers (god luv em) who can't wait (nobody's perfect), customers waiting for cash payments have to wait until I get a surplus from selling off boxes of stamps. Right now, cash customers are being filled fairly quickly. Stamp orders are being filled more slowly due to lack of material. Russia has become incredibly scarce lately, and very competitive at auction. Russia lots regularly go for triple what I figure was a resonable bid.
CREDIT OFFERED - No reductions right now, and I don't expect any reductions in the near future.
So, what can you do about your trade credit?
Get more trade credit - CONSIGNMENT SERVICE - If you mount and price your stamps, you can get much better credit for them. These can go into my inventory straight away, even if they're not in high demand categories. For example, if you take $10.00 CV in MNH Russia that I don't have and send it for credit, you will get an offer of $0.90 (30% of CV, - 70%). However, if you mount those same stamps on a blue sheet at 60% Scott's (the maximum), you will get a whopping $4.20 in credit for the same stamps, which is $1.20 better than you would get even if I were offering full credit for them.
Get more out of your trade credit - EBAY AUCTIONS - Some lots are going very cheap on Ebay, so why not pick them up at a bargain and use your trade credit? For example, I charge top dollar for U.S. mint at retail, but recently I offered a large lot (over $700 face U.S.) for a little less than face value.. In addition, the material from box lots and broken down box lots is never coming to you on approval. There are bargains aplenty.
Update! March 26, 2006 - My mail insurance coverage has changed as I had to switch insurers. My old insurance company no longer does business in Canada.
The big difference is the deductible, or the risk I take on each mailing, which is $100.00 Cdn. Losses of less than this amount are not covered by my insurance any more (the old policy covered all losses down to the last dollar). Moreover, my old policy covered mail losses by first class or air mail up to $400.00 U.S. The new policy only covers the second $100.00 of a loss up to $200.00.
However, although the $100.00 deductible still applies, the new coverage covers registered mail, insured mail, most forms of signature mail and courier up to $4,000 Cdn. As such, if you send me large amounts of material by registered mail, it should be covered just fine.
Please note that I have decided that approvals travelling both ways and mint stamps sent in payment are my sole responsibility. If those stamps are damaged or lost in transit, I will cover all losses up to the $100.00 deductible. However, remember stamps you send in trade are your responsibility until they arrive at my mail box (after that, they are covered if they are stolen or damaged). However, most forms of mailing where there is a $100.00 automatic coverage (like Canadian Xpresspost or U.S. Express Mail) will provide full coverage.
For Ebay customers, I will not cover lots going out as the margins are too small. However, you can buy insurance from me (I will self-insure) for $0.01 for every $1.00 in coverage, up to $1.00 where I will send by an insured method.
March 26, 2006 - Sorry if I lost anyone, but my web site url was changed without notice to me. Here's the story:
Way back a long time ago, I found a more or less permanent home with a very reasonable web-site provider at $9.99 U.S. per month called Interspeed. My original web site was haddock.interspeed.net.
However, some time after that, another company calling itself Interspeed started a domain name fight over the interspeed.net domain. The new company was much richer and more powerful, so my internet provider gave in and changed it's name to Hispeed. As such, I was now at haddock.hispeed.com.
Things went well for years until Hispeed got taken over by USA Net Hosting. For a while, they maintained the old hispeed.com domains, including mine. However, they recently upgraded their servers and, in the process, they decided that there were too few hispeed domains to keep the domain active. As such, I'm now at haddock.usanethosting.com.
This is the main reason I keep my alternative mirror site at Fortune City. Please make sure you bookmark both in case I can't get back to one.
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