ROSSI’S RULES ON BUYING STAMPS ON FACEBOOK 1. CHECK THE SELLER’S PROFILE. WHETHER THEY SOLD BEFORE OR NOT THEY  SHOULD HAVE A LENGTHY PROFILE EVEN FOR SOMEONE ONLY ON FB FOR A YEAR.  THE ONES THAT APPEAR TO HAVE NEXT TO NOTHING JUST CREATED A PROFILE FOR  THIS SALE PURPOSE. THIS IS RED FLAG. 2. ANY STAMP OR COLLECTION BEING SOLD FOR $40 FOR MORE SHOULD HAVE  EITHER  A CERTIFICATION OR A TRACKABLE APPRAISAL. WITHOUT THIS  INSTRUMENT OF VERIFIABLITY YOU ARE THROWING DICE BASED ON TRICKY  PHOTO SHOTS,  MISIDENTIFIED STAMPS, U ..read more

  Facts for Stamp Sellers And How to Donate to a Worthy Cause     Social Media is a great place to interact with collectors. It’s now the #1 format for stamp traders who can download an image of a stamp and chat with other collectors quickly and relatively safely. Facebook especially has a vast number of stamp collecting groups often defined by agenda like new, buying, selling, air mail. South Africa, etc. I enjoy consulting for a few of them and often have to assist with the flood of questions from non-collectors who spend a paragraph mentioning how they love and adore thei ..read more

  Besides running this private charity, Kids Need Stamps 2, i help out in a number of various stamp discussion groups on Facebook. More times than not I come across a set of people who i must call "the lottery disease" mainly because the great majority of these people are convinced, through no research, that they have something rare and worth thousands or millions of dollars. One sad fellow was planning to fix his roof on the sale of a stamp that wouldn't even pay for the call to the roof company. I don't mention this to mock anyone because initially these are common reactions from inex ..read more

Facebook, much more than Ebay, has fast become the wild wild west of stamps where the novice or relative of recently deceased who inherited a collection now go to find information or valuation. Both suspect sadly due to the enormous amount of poor advice, conflicts of interest, unneeded appraisals and general conspiracy to wear you down into a bad sale. Beware of the following situations and take this advice seriously: The Helpful Collector: Loves giving you incredible advice and even directs you to a site or two. What to Ask:  Are you a dealer? If the person says yes or hedge ..read more

Towards a Graceful Inheritance I am writing this article more as an open letter to the older members of the stamp collecting community. In the past five decades stamp collecting has slid down enormously in value and enthusiasm. Part of the reason is the changing times of how we live our lives with so much to compete for our attention from the World Wide Internet to Video Games to Special Effects in Dolby sound movie theatres. The other part of the decline is our responsibility. It has become apparent we spent so much time collecting stamps and in many cases stationery, first day covers an ..read more

The rush for stamp valuation is fraught with fraud sadly because it is initiated by folks who just found a cache of stamps via inheritance or the classic garage sale and now believe a few old stamps will buy them a new car, a new house or a new life. Like they hit some sort of strange lottery. You need a few stamp facts to help you understand the reality of stamps and stamp collecting: 1. Stamps are Personal: Most stamp collections are comprised by collectors who loved the stamps. Loved collecting them. Sorting them. Mounting them. Viewing them. Stamps has always been fascinating as art ..read more

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Stamp Collecting as a Therapy Kids Need Stamps 2 continues to support the honorable project "Stamps For the Wounded" which gathers donated stamps and uses them to help wounded U.S. military veterans in hospitals around the world.  How do they help wounded veterans with stamps? They put together stamps and albums as a package and present the gift to the wounded soldier. The wounded find concentrating on stamps in all its facets takes their mind off their injuries. The therapy of using stamps is it can be a delightful distraction from a troubled past, troubled present or perhaps a troubled ..read more

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