My gripe about the "Buy, Sell, Trade-coins" section

TheNumish

Seems to me most of the posts in the "Buy,Sell,Trade" section are not actual listing of coins for sale but people promoting their ebay auctions and teletrade coins. I'm like everyone else and like to buy from fellow members when I see their stuff on ebay but what's the point of going into that section if there are few coins listed for sale. If it's meassage after message of "look at this link for my coins for sale" it becomes useless. It could really be a great way for collectors to buy and sell coins at good prices if people used it to actually list things for direct sale. I know it's free and I should stop my crying. Just wanted to get it off my chest.

mbbiker

Numish I agree, all these posts to e-bay getting TTT'd everyday is what i don't like, i don't even click on them anymore if the title has somthing to do with e-bay auctions. Your posts are great, nice coins at great prices + your willing to send them out on approval, I think that type of sale is what the BST boad is for.

LanLord

I agree 100%. I stopped looking at that board when I realized it was just a commercial for eBay.

If people would post only coins for sale/trade/swap internal to this board, I'd spend a bunch of time there.

Perhaps we, as dissatisfied board members need to make the move to shove the eBay cr@p off.

Dog97

Just look for the stuff I'm selling because I put <<<NOT ON EBAY>>> in my thread title.

nwcs

Whenever I look, it seems that most people say ebay or not ebay in their subject line. That's enough for me.

TheNumish

Dog97-that's pretty smart. I'll have to steal that idea.

mdwoods

I'm guilty, although I do mark them as on ebay. However, seeing the sentiment is against such things, I am going to stop posting unless the coin is only available on the BST board. mdwoods

RonMan

Ditto!!! My surfing of the BST forum is usually pretty quick.

Maybe the few members that only use this forum for free advertising of their eBay auctions could give an incentive to check out their auctions in the form of "free shipping to to CU members". Just a thought.

RonMan

mbbiker

mdwoods, I think it's ok to put up a post stating it's e-bay auctions, but wait to post until there is only a day left in your auctions, that way alot of people will still see your auctions, but you will not be bumping down legit posts everytime you TTT your post. I like to see what other members have for sale but it's the people that TTT there post everytime it leaves the 1st page that bother me.

mdwoods

mdwoods, I think it's ok to put up a post stating it's e-bay auctions, but wait to post until there is only a day left in your auctions, that way alot of people will still see your auctions,

I will do so, and also take RonMans' suggestion and offer free shipping to board members.

SarasotaFrank

it strikes me the underutilized aspect of B/S/T is the fact more members don't publish their "wants".

Before running anything on ebay, I would post what I have available there. It's going to be offered at a fair price, no ebay headaches, no monitoring auctions, no worries about getting stiffed.

From a buyers perspective, if I am seeking something, I will make it known in B/S/T. I doubt there is much I am looking for that I cannot obtain from a board member.

A few weeks ago, I was looking for some Kennedy halves - nothing spectacular, but nonetheless, I had some difficulty locating them. I put a message on BST and it took a grand total of about an hour for me to have teh purchase set up with Ron.

B/S/T is an underutilized asset in my opinion, and I think members could do a whole lot more business with a little effort.

Also probably wouldn't hurt if the prices were realistic, as there are some that are just flat off the chart.

MacCoin

when I first came to collectors universe back in the summer of 99 there wasn't all these ebay links on b/s/t just coins for sale swap or want list. I did a lot of trading that year. I haven't seen to much for trades of anyything but ebay link for a long time so I don't even look anymore. for me its back to Numismatic News classifieds. if I want to go to ebay I do know how to spell ebay.com I don't need a link to find it.

I just don't use it anymore

mbbiker

Mac, Just in case you forget - link

CarlWohlforth

The last time this came up I learned to always put eBay in the title so nobody has to read my post if they don't want to see links to my auction. However I usually try to mention something that isn't on eBay as well. I think I might try that free shipping to Forum members idea.

BTW I do look there daily and always read the "wanted" posts...

tompkins

numish, mbbiker et al
I raised exactly these two issues (eBay auction and continually 'ttt') about six months ago on the B/S/T board itself. The sentiment on that board was typically "I put eBay in the title"; and "I usually only 'ttt' once a day; my listing is usually within the first three or four pages so it doesn't take long to find". As I recall most of the comments were from people who used the board to sell; with very few comments from buyers. Since the overwhemling sentiment was that nothing was broken, so lets not fix it, my attitude (and obviously an attitude shared by others vbased on this thread) was that it didn't meet my needs---takes too long to find very little of interest to me; so, unfortunately, I almost never look at the B/S/T board anymore (unless I have a lot of time to kill). The upside of this, of course, is that my previous complaint of seeing the same links to eBay 'ttt'd everytime I look is no longer valid--only because I look at most once every couple weeks, so by the time I look, they are new ads that I haven't seen before (still ttt's every day, but at least I haven't seen them before).

Pete

MacCoin

mbbiker you could have link me to US coins
linkage

NBSQLGeek

I have created on my site a seperate section for ebay listings in my forums. Something so simple to do and Collectors Universe cant do it or take the time to make its repeat visitors happy.

prooflike

I put up a survey poll once and the majority said to keep the ebay posts in the BST forum. That was sometime ago but I don't think that view has changed much.

relayer

When I've tried pimping some coin on the BST that I have listed on eBay, I've offered free Shipping and even free gold to board members. Nobody every took me up on it.

I just list Registery Quality coins there if I have some high grade coin that may be of interest to board members. As for pimping my regular auctions, I took my cue from Carl and put that in my signature line.

I've sold some coins (moderns) that I made on the BST listed at my cost, but lately I feel I'm ripping them off because you can usually buy them below my cost in my eBay auctions.

And here's a good case in point

SarasotaFrank

kinda sorta because I need one, and kinda sorta as a test, I put up a post seeking an SBA wide rim (near date) BU coin.

In less than an hour, I have one on the way.

This seems pretty easy to me. A board member gets to sell a coin, I get one I am seeking.