Appearances Matter

Before I took up cataloging stocks and bonds, I was a professional geologist in the coal business. Not the kind of geologist who liked beating on rocks, but an economic geologist who evaluated mines and properties for acquisition. Heating values, sulfur percentages, and sizes of reserves were the main drivers of value along with predictions of future coal usage and numerous other factors.

Some decisions about valuation, however, were made long before technical analyses. The conditions of facilities, preparation plants, and equipment most assuredly affected impressions of value. Some properties looked more like junk yards than mines and were priced accordingly.

I see similar relationships in collectibles. Appearances matter. Look at ads in this magazine. Scripophily advertisers make their items LOOK more valuable regardless of rarity and collectors will probably agree.

I stress in the strongest possible way that I want this hobby to survive. The hobby has lost several top dealers in the past decade and I don’t believe this hobby can thrive on the eBay market alone. In my opinion, professional dealers and auctioneers are the supporting pillars of this hobby; they are absolutely crucial to its survival.

Sadly, methods of reaching certificate collectors have changed dramatically since the turn of the century. That is why I've seen quite a few pro and semi-pro certificate sellers set up presences on eBay. Every seller quickly learns that breaking out of the eBay stranglehold and graduating to professional status is terribly difficult. In that environment, appearances matter more than ever. I am constantly amazed at the number of eBay sellers who apparently believe they can become professional without looking professional.

“Looking professional” does not mean wearing a suit and tie. Professionals in this hobby do most of their business by mail. That is an endeavor that demands intense focus on customers. Who are their customers? What do they want? How do they buy? What do they respond to? What are they really collecting? 

It is not easy to understand what motivates collectors to buy, but it is easy to say what doesn’t! 

No collector wants to buy crumpled, misshapen, folded pieces of paper. If certificates do not look attractive, then prices must! Some sellers illustrate their certificates with primary images of back panels, coupons, or vignettes. Yes, those are all parts of stocks and bonds. But this hobby is about collecting certificates. Collectors want to see certificates.

Sellers also need to talk about the features of certificates, full well knowing that eBay and web buyers seldom pay much attention to descriptions of conditions, paper quality, cancellations, hard-to-see problems, rarity, and attractiveness. Still, sellers should attempt to tell collectors what they need to know.

Only yesterday I recorded a bond that had sold on eBay for $184. The price was substantial for eBay, especially since the listing showed a crumpled mess. The seller never even smoothed out folds in the paper! The seller clearly wanted to be rid of the bond, not realizing that the bond was very rare. In my opinion, his laziness and poor imagery penalized him somewhere between $50 and $200! 

It should be clear that if sellers want to make more money and develop loyal customer bases, they need to do the opposite. They need to do what professional dealers are doing. Professionals routinely outsell their competitors, both in numbers of items and in prices. They show their items in the best possible way. They demand and usually get their prices. They don't pretend to operate in the bargain basement. 

It seems obvious that sellers who want to graduate to higher levels of commerce need  to work on their appearances. They need to use scanned images. They need to make their certificates look rectangular, straight, well lit, evenly lit, with genuine colors. They need to use consistent presentation styles across all their offerings. They need to learn what buyers really want and stop wasting time on things buyers don't care about.

I talked about the importance of understanding mail order in my last column due to the decreasing opportunity for face-to-face interactions between collectors and dealers. Grasping proven copy-writing techniques is highly important. Thankfully, there are now better payment methods and tremendous opportunities to use large, full-color imagery when illustrating certificates. Good imagery is probably the single most important selling tool available. I beg sellers to improve their imagery for both their and their customers’ benefits.