Stamp Shows  For well over ten years, I put on stamp shows in Denver, starting at the old Quality Inn on Hampden Avenue, which closed and is now razed, then changing to a Holiday Inn and, finally, to the Embassy Suites, again on Hampden Avenue.  My final event was in November, 2005.  Most collectors would think that the reason for the demise of the shows was fall-off in attendance or lack of dealers, but that was not the case.  Rather, it was contract problems with the hotel and the lack of suitable alternatives.  Most hobby shows do not bring much money to a hotel like the Embassy Suites.  With mostly a local crowd, even for my two-day events, little or no money was spent on rooms, food and drink, the life-blood of the hotel business.  Consequently, the hotel was not too concerned about unilaterally changing my contract, forcing me to change dates or, in one case, to cancel a show entirely.  We had a steady following for the one-day events until the last.  The final Colorado Stamp Bonanza, two days in July, 2005, the twenty-first such event, was actually the largest ever of these shows, with seventeen dealers, including many from out of state.  Over the years, more than one hundred dealers participated in my stamp shows and well over one thousand Colorado stamp collectors attended, at one time or another.  The shows were lots of fun for both collectors and dealers and many good friendships were built over the years.  I owe particular thanks to fellow dealers Joe Neri, Joe Lambert and the late Max Hickox, who supported my shows faithfully over the years, as well as to the many other dealers who participated, whether frequently or occasionally.  Thanks also, of course, to the collectors who made these stamp shows successful.

I have also cut back significantly on doing out-of-state stamp shows in recent years, finally doing only Westpex in San Francisco, arguably the best show on the west coast and, for postal history, the best show in the country.  With great reluctance, I gave up Westpex this year, for it was a very strong event for me, year after year.  I will continue, however, doing the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show in Denver, which will be the only major stamp show on my schedule in the future.

On to the Internet!  So, without stamp shows, what do you do?  I put much more emphasis on selling on my web site, started selling on eBay and continued selling through the APS StampStore, which has been a very good venue for me to sell stamps.

The transition to eBay is a big one, at least if you want to do serious business.  I have paid my dues here, and now tend to consistently achieve my sales goals.  You may be aware that stamp dealing is a very labor-intensive business.  It becomes much more so with eBay or a web site because of the email traffic, the need to scan lots, data entry on the computer, invoicing and the need to mail out lots.  With stamp shows, to a considerable extent, it's location, location, location.  With eBay, it's procedures, procedures, procedures!  These have to be worked out carefully, unless you want to be a slave to the computer.

At first, in selling on eBay, there was some concern about offering more expensive material.  I started out very tentatively, putting up low-priced material, until I gained confidence in this market place.  The thing that really makes eBay a success is the "feedback" system, in which both buyers and sellers are rated on their adherence to good and honest business practices.  Then, there is the warm feeling you get when you put up a lot that sells for eight or ten times what you thought it would bring.  That does happen occasionally, but not often enough to be really significant.  You rather quickly gain confidence in eBay as a venue and offer better quality material.  Because eBay is an auction venue, it is desirable to set a starting price somewhat below what you hope that a lot will bring, to encourage collectors to "track" the lot and to develop competitive bidding.

Search engines make the Internet a very attractive place to buy and sell stamps, postal history, postal stationery, supplies--anything philatelic, you name it!  I find that I sell much more topical or thematic material on the Internet than I ever did at stamp shows.  If an item shows "butterflies", "birds", "maps", "space" or some other popular topic, then simply mention it in the item description and let the search engines do their work.  It is not hard to spot a topical collector when a sale involves four or five items with the same thematic interest.

Well over half of my eBay and web site sales are to collectors (and dealers) outside of the United States.  The majority of these are in Europe, including eastern Europe, followed by Asia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and, less frequently, to Africa.  PayPal, an alternative which I offer to receive payments, is a very important service that is not only secure, but makes currency exchanges an invisible part of my business.  Many collectors prefer to do business the old fashioned way, of course, by means of checks or money orders.

For me, perhaps the most attractive aspect of selling on the Internet, whether on my web site or on eBay, is that I can sell from the large quantity of material, including stamps, postal history, postal stationery and just "stuff", that I have accumulated over the years, material that didn't sell at the stamp shows I did over the years.  With the Internet, I have a huge number of potential buyers, who have never seen this material.  Any stamp dealer will tell you that there is a certain pleasure in seeing an "old friend" go--it may be a nice item, but you didn't really want to own it forever.  I still buy aggressively, but more selectively than when I was doing stamp shows.