Orders and documents

[deValcourt]

Well feel free to private message me a few names. It would certainly help me out a lot.

Welcome to the forum. You seem to have the right attitude for a beginner - in fact, I wish I had started with my brain as you are rather than what I thought was "cool." I could probably have retired. And of course that last statement is far from true.

I also suspect you will get several PMs regarding good sellers - there are a few of them still out there.

Now, at the risk of having Ed hurl curses at me for saying this, don't throw out the idea of eBay all together. Just for diversion this week I bid on about 7 or 8 items that all started very low and without a reserve (a couple of ORSs, CSMs, ORBLs and something else I forget). I came across these sellers by chance, they are all based somewhere in North America (so postal tracking is great) and they seem to be selling off their own collections because one guy had 5 or 6 ORSs and the other had about the same number of Red Banners of Labor (two with booklets). Most importantly, their scores as buyers/sellers were between 300-500 which means to me that they are not doing this to try to earn a living and thus have less interest in going through the trouble of forgery/fakery.

The other trick is to simply decide on a "top dollar" price that you are willing to pay for something, put that amount in within the last 12 hours, and (here's the important part) don't check on it again until after the auction is over. Sure you may lose by one or two dollars, but if you had watched it to the very end, you might have gotten caught up in the fever of bidding and found yourself paying way more than you should have.

I lost about 75% of the ones I bid on, but I picked up a nice 1.2mil ORS with perfect enamel from the MMD in 1945 (Echoes of War and a list on this forum), a 6-digit CSM on a 5-sided suspension with award doc (real or not) and a couple of MVD/KGB aluminum anniversary badges all for under $100.

Now, I'm not saying this happens all the time, but when you play the odds like I mentioned above, you tend to come away with a good deal fairly often (once a month).

I should add this notion as well. I lost out on a really cool "jumbo" ORBL flat-back with an uncommon mint mark (the seller made no mention of it) by $1, and the sale price was $76 - because I simply assumed the price would just keep climbing way past my max bid. So if it is something you really want, then you have to play the eBay game up to the last seconds - literally.

Practically every day it seems that somebody new pops up with about a dozen items for sale at low or no starting bids. But if I spent all the time necessary to catch every good deal, I would have to quit my job, kick this annoying sleep habit and forget about having a roof under which I can store and display my collection (and I can assure you everyone here started with just a few items).:thumbsup

So far, one of the best pieces of advice I've seen is to try to narrow your field of interest as much as you can at this stage so you don't just meander along without a goal. At the same time, there is something to be said for casting a wide net and then shedding - or to continue the metaphor - throwing back what you don't need later. However, even after doing this for at least 20 years on and off, I have yet to throw anything back. Soon.

Phillip