Frequently Asked Questions

Basic information on using our site and ordering from us is found on our Terms of Sale page.
This page provides additional explanation of questions we have been asked.

Prices and Payments
What currency are your prices in?
You're in Canada. Why are your prices in US$ ?
I live in another country. How do I pay?
Why won't you take an order under $10 ?

Using the website
If a stamp is on the site, is it guaranteed to be available?
The Shopping Cart does not work!
The full size pictures won't come up!
How long does my Shopping Cart last?
How do I find stamps in my interest?
Why don't you provide... [more categories, more information, searchable index] in Bargain Bin ?
Can I combine orders from your websites?

Other Stuff
I have a question that's not here!

 

What currency are your prices in?
Our prices are all in US dollars, even though we are in Canada. It is the easiest currency in which to do business internationally. For our Canadian customers, we will accept Canadian dollar cheques in payment, converted at the current exchange rate.
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You're in Canada. Why are your prices in US$ ?
Approximately 90% of our business is done outside Canada. We price everything in US dollars for the convenience of our worldwide clientele. Canadian customers may pay in C$, calculated at the current exchange rate. If we know your address is in Canada, our invoice will show both US$ and C$ amounts. Our prices on Canadian stamps are adjusted for the currency difference so that the C$ equivalent is in line with our usual reasonable pricing.
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I live in another country. How do I pay?
We try to offer as many convenient forms of payment as possible. See our Payments Page for full details.
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Why won't you take an order under $10 ?
There are only so many man-hours in a day, and we have no desire to hire more people. Our work hours are long enough dealing with the orders over our minimum. We just do not have the capacity to handle small orders and still have a personal life. We often hear, "But it's just one more package ... five minutes work". No, it's you and 50 other orders a week if we shipped out $2 orders! Sorry!
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If a stamp is on the site, is it guaranteed to be available?
The shopping cart system on this site is smart. It will not let you order a stamp that somebody else has ordered, and once it is in your shopping cart, nobody else can have it. So your assurance is very high. However, what is guaranteed in life? About once every 2000 stamps, we mess up (that's 99.95% accuracy!). Maybe we got a stock number mixed up and sent the stamp you want to somebody else by accident months ago. Maybe we sent somebody one too many stamps. If it's gone, and we can't find it, there is nothing we can do about it. So we will claim the legal defence of "E & O. E." (Errors and Omissions Excepted). Subject to that, "Yes, it's guaranteed!" **
** E. & O.E.
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The Shopping Cart does not work!
The only reason we have encountered for this problem is that your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc.) is not accepting "Cookies". Cookies are small bits of information that our server sends to your browser. When the server asks for the information later, your browser returns it to identify itself so that the proper shopping cart can be retrieved. Think of the process like a ticket at a coat check - you hand in your ticket to get your coat back. If your browser is set on "No Cookies" (i.e. Privacy settings too high!), it's like saying you won't take the ticket for your coat, so it's hard to get it back later! Our cookies do not store any sensitive information. They are only a random number used to identify a particular shopping cart. (Your name, address and email are stored only if you request it upon checkout. And remember, they are stored on yourcomputer, not ours.)). ;

When you try to add the first item to your Shopping Cart, our system will test for Cookie Acceptance. Pay attention to the resulting message! If it says your browser is not accepting our cookie, don't bother going any further until it's fixed.

To check your Cookie setting:
Internet Explorer 6.0: From the menu bar, choose Tools >> Internet Options >> Privacy tab. Any setting of the slide below "High" should work. Our Cookie is a "First Party" cookie that does not store personal information. If you still have a problem after that, it may be a Firewall issue. Sorry, but we can't help you with that.

Netscape Navigator:(We have not used Netscape since version 4.05 so these instructions are probably out of date, but may give you a place to look). From the menu bar, choose Edit , Preferences, Advanced. Then in the "Cookies" section make any selection except "Disable cookies".

Firefox: From the menu bar, choose Tools >> Options >> Privacy tab. Do either: 1)Check "Accept Cookies" >> until they expire OR 2) Uncheck "Accept Cookies" AND Click on "Exceptions", add Bargain Bin.com to the list, and ALLOW.
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The full size pictures won't come up!
We frequently hear: "I clicked on a thumbnail and it skipped to the top of the page instead of giving me the pop-up window with the full size picture."

The reason for this is always the same. You have a pop-up blocker active. All blockers can be set to allow pop-ups from trusted sites. That's what you need to do, but we can't help you actually do it, since there are so many different pieces of software out there. If you can't find the "trusted" switch, just turn off your blocker while on our site. There are no "nasty" advertising pop-ups here. We have encountered situations where, even after disabling a pop-up blocker, the problem did not go away. The answer was that more than one blocker was active! This can happen for example, by having toolbar blockers on your browser and another separate stand-alone blocker.
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How long does my Shopping Cart last?
As long as you are adding items to your Shopping Cart, there is no time limit. However, after four hours of inactivity, a Shopping Cart is considered "Abandoned" and may be automatically deleted. Items in your Shopping cart can not be ordered by anyone else. Please be considerate of other collectors and delete your Shopping Cart if you do not intend to complete the order.
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How do I find stamps in my interest?
Bargain Bin
Use the "Bargain Bin Index" link in the menu at left. It will bring up a page of stamp categories. You should find your interest there. There is no way of making a more specific search within this part of the site, as descriptions are not provided for Bargain Bin items due to the low cost.

Better Stamps
Our premium stamps are maintained in a separate inventory we simply call the "Better Stamps". See the link at left. These stamps have country names, searchable descriptions and keywords. When you first use the link, a full index and instructions will appear, along with links to help pages.
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Why don't you provide... [more categories, more information, searchable index] in the Bargain Bin ?
The common theme among all these questions is that the Bargain Bin part of our site would be easier for the specialist to use if we would only provide more information on the stamps, either by providing a searchable index, separating them into more specific categories or some similar suggestion.

We can see how further indexing, or providing more details on an individual stamp basis, could make the Bargain Bin listings easier to search, particularly for those with narrow interests. However, the economics of offering so many stamps, scanned and online at this price, don't allow us to handle the stamps in any smaller groups than we already do. Any additional information, or category breakdown, means more handling -- more handling means more labor costs, and necessarily higher prices. We can't manage it.

Just like the typical $1 stamp table at a stamp show, Bargain Bin is a "browsers" site. Economics rules all. In order to provide the material the way we do, we have to save labor costs. The customers (that's you, hopefully!) provide their own "time and labor" by spending the time browsing. Those who are willing to spend the time reap the rewards. Those who are not willing will have to go and (typically) pay more to a dealer who has put his own time and labor into more fully describing the stamp.

Note that our "Better Stamps" listings do include searchable descriptions and more information.

Now if you have a suggestion on this topic that does not involve more labor at our end, we'd love to hear it!
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Can I combine orders from your websites?
Selections from both the Bargain Bin and Better Stamps portions of the site go into the same shopping cart and are totalled together. Multiple orders placed within a 3 day period may be combined to save on postage. This gives you more time to shop, while still saving! Please read our Terms of Sale page for full details.
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I have a question that's not here!
Use the "Contact Webmaster" link in the menu at left to contact us with your question. We'll answer it, and maybe post it here for the next person.
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