El Coleccionista con el Mas Intercambios - Presentamos Ernesto Berrios [ernest]

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El colecciónista con las más positivas calificaciones en Colnect, el Sr. Ernesto Berrios, acaba de la marca de 313 + calificaciones positivas. Este logro es aún más increíble cuando te das cuenta de Venezuela ha tenido muchas problemas con su sistema de correo como ya se hemos informado.

¿Cuándo y cómo has empezado tu colección?

Comencé mi colección en el año 1987 - 1988 aproximadamente, la empecé porque en Venezuela salieron unas tarjetas magnéticas de varios montos y colores y hacia llaveros y luego las empecé a guardar porque me llamo la curiosidad mucho. Luego conocí algunos amigos de Europa, como España y Francia que viajaban a Venezuela y les pregunte por las tarjetas y empezamos hacer cambios, eran pocas, cambiamos 10, 20 tarjetas ellos tenían mas modelos que yo pero yo le entregaba varias del mismo modelo y ellos aceptaban y así fue como fui guardando las tarjetas.



¿Qué es lo que más te interesa en tu colección?

Lo que más me interesa en mi colección son las tarjetas de temas como mariposas, Disney, orquídeas, antigüedades, puzles, zodiacos, y tarjetas de países difíciles como de África no importa la temática me conformo con tener el país es lo más importante creo que lo más importante de todo es tener aunque sea una tarjeta de cada país


¿Cuándo y cómo has encontrado a Colnect?

Encontré Colnect en el año 2004 como telecard island pero me inscribí en el 2005 hacia muchos intercambios pero los amigos me decían ponga las tarjetas que tienes pero no sabía cómo era el sistema hasta que fui aprendiendo poco a poco he cambiado con muchos amigos en Colnect actualmente.



¿Cuánto tiempo pasas usando Colnect?
Uso Colnect a veces 2 horas al día, a veces 5 horas, cuando no trabajo gasto unas 6 horas, cuando trabajo una hora al día.

¿Cuantos intercambios haces con Colnect por mes?
El mes que más he hecho, he hecho 53, es lo máximo que he hecho, claro hago muchos cambios con los mismos amigos porque tengo amigos con los cuales he hecho más de 20 cambios. Actualmente tengo 63 cartas en camino para amigos en diferentes países.

¿Haces intercambios fuera de Colnect?
Sí, hago cambios fuera de Colnect. Mucha gente que he invitado a que sea miembro de Colnect y no han querido no les gusta colocar lo que tienen en Colnect.



¿Qué es lo que más te gusta en Colnect?

Todo, es muy original, muy bueno, es lo mejor en el mundo del coleccionismo. Uno pasa parte de su vida compartiendo con amigos de todo el mundo. Colnect es algo extraordinario.

¿Qué quisieras ver mejorado en Colnect?

Bueno me gustaría que a una persona que tenga 3 negativos y no responda los mensajes fuese suspendida. Un ejemplo, yo tengo algunos amigos coleccionistas que me han enviado tarjetas en muy malas condiciones, tan malas que a mí me da pena hasta enviarlas como regaloy no los califico neutral porque de inmediato me califican neutral ydicen que lo que yo le envié también es malo, solo no vuelvo a cambiar con ellos.

Colnect tiene un buen coordinador, el amigo (Ignacio F López Vico). Es un gran amigo que te responde todas las quejas casi de inmediato, es un buen mediador y yo le agradezco mucho todo lo que ha hecho por mi persona y por todos los amigos que le han pedido ayuda. Un excelente amigo que hace que cada día Colnect sea mejor.

¿Porqué no tienes ninguna valoración negativa?

Las personas que en alguna ocasión me la pusieron mala fue porque ellos me robaron y como los califique negativos también lo hicieron y Colnect ayudo mucho a que eso se arreglara. Hay personas que envían cartas ordinarias y las reciben certificadas y la mayoría de cartas ordinarias se pierden, hay que tratar de exigirle a los amigos coleccionistas que las cartas en mal estado no sirven en Colnect. Gracias a Dios existe esas normas.



¿Cómo podemos mejorar el sistema de valoraciones?

Esa pregunta es muy importante. Hay coleccionistas que hacen una valoración positiva a un amigo del cual ha recibido la carta y si la persona envió la carta ordinaria o no la envió y paso mucho tiempo y el coleccionista no responde los mensajes, ni llega la carta la otra persona que no le ha llegado la carta se cansa y le hace una calificación negativa este señor, el cual si recibió la carta pero cambia la valoración de positiva a negativa, a mi me ha sucedido y eso no se debe permitir eso hay que mejorarlo eso no se debe permitir primero hay que escuchar las 2 partes y luego actuar porque hay algunos coleccionistas que se aprovechan de otros coleccionistas. Yo en lo que pueda ayudarlos estaré a orden para cualquier idea.

¿Algo más que quieras decir?

Agradezco a usted que representa esta excelente pagina en nombre detodos mis amigos coleccionistas de Venezuela y del mundo que como yose sienten orgullosos de ser miembros de este hobby tan especial. Mil gracias y que vivas por siempre. En Venezuela tienes un amigo y si necesitas algo de Venezuela estaré a la orden. Mil gracias de nuevo por existir.

Cheaters Away! Colnect Protects Collectors

We are doing our best to stop cheaters from being on Colnect. We deactivate accounts of suspicious collectors and publish their mailing address on our "Warnings and Ratings Forum". We've just deactivated accounts of a sophisticated cheater (see below). We can do a good job at it only with your help. If you become suspicious of someone trying to be a wrong doer, don't hesitate to give us the information you have and we'll investigate.

!MOST IMPORTANT! Please carefully read our Swapping Tips and follow them.

Announcement about a recent deactivation

The account of alispilfo has been deactivated although no negative ratings were seen on the profile page. This is a special case and the results of my own investigation are presented here.

It seems the person has opened other accounts on Colnect, such as Thiago00 and marior. The account Thiago00 has been deactivated some time ago upon the person's own request. Later, negative ratings were given and collectors got angry claiming they have been cheated. modj0 has been deactivated when we realized it's the same address. marior has been deactivated as emails used by that member were reported as suspicious in other forums.

Considering the fact it's the same person (this has taken some investigation and cross referencing information from different sources) , it seems opening the other accounts were meant for cheating while keeping the main account "clean".

*Shipping addresses saved on Colnect system.

Safe and happy collecting :)

360 Volunteering Contributors on Colnect

Colnect has been created and now maintained by a community of volunteers from around the world. We're pleased to announce that till today, 360 volunteers have received contribution stars on Colnect. Earning a contribution star isn't a simple matter and even to get the first star a collector usually spends a good amount of hours. All of our three-star members, currently 43 of them, have worked at least hundreds of hours (each one) to earn that prestigious status on Colnect.

If you're already a Colnect member and would like to help create a fine resource that serves collectors everywhere, please read our forum post.

Colnect on Sberatel - Part 3

Colnect has presented on Sberatel 2011 and here is the third part of our experiences. You're welcome to read the first part and second part as well.

Here below you can find two specialized fantasy banknotes created especially for the fair. As you can see, they are very beautiful and so quickly became a wanted commodity in the fair. Collectors wanted to grab a few copies of each and some were even coming back again and again, pretending to see them for the first time just to grab a few more copies.




After a while, we realized that we'll have to limit the fliers to one per person so we won't run out of them on the first day. Now we can only wonder how many of the people who took them will actually become active Colnect members. Credit for the graphic design goes to André Leitão [ALeitao] who volunteered to help on Colnect.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

To help explaining to visitors about Colnect, some of our dedicated members pitched in to help. They wore Colnect T-Shirts and explained about Colnect in different languages. Thanks to Vadym Sulimenko [Dravec], of Colnect's most valuable volunteers, Czech language was very well attended to. Gary Hoff [gazzaoz], our transportation tickets coordinator, helped with German.






A special discount to Colnect members attending Sberatel has been offered this year and will likely be offered on Sberatel 2012 fair. Let's meet there :)

Colnect on Sberatel - Part 2

Colnect has presented on Sberatel 2011 and here is the second part of our experiences. You're welcome to read the first part as well.

The main hall of the fair had hundreds of dealers presenting their items for sale. The most popular categories were stamps, coins and banknotes.





However, most esoteric items, such as figurines and minerals were on display as well. Colnect's centralized catalog approach is good for many categories which we don't yet offer. We do plan to offer them in the future. Kinder surprise eggs is one such category.




The phone cards section, especially dear to Colnect as it was the first category Colnect has offered, had only a few tables. It seems every year dealers are reporting that the hobby is losing interest as mobile phones mean people around the world are less likely to use public phones.

More on the next part. Let us know if you like the post :)

Colnect on Sberatel - Part 1

Colnect presented on Sberatel 2011 fair in Prague, Czech Republic. The fair has been attended by over 12,000 people. It has been a lot of fun to meet Colnect members and collectors who were not yet familiar with Colnect.

Colnect's first fantasy banknotes have been publicly presented for the first time. Here you can see the Colnect dollar presented

Colnect had a table right at the entrance to the fair so that visitors would see Colnect as the first thing in the fair. Our table featured Frognector Da-Green himself, new fliers (or: fantasy banknotes) of Colnect, Colnect T-Shirts and a projector that played videos of Colnect and presented the site in real time.





Here Colnect's founder, Amir Wald [tcawe], is seen waiting for collectors at the table. Each day Mr. Wald put on a Colnect T-Shirt of a different color.



On this picture you can see Frognector and Moo resting after sipping a tasty Czech beer.



This year's fair has been a success as published by its organizer, Mr. Jindřich Jirásek: "This year's Collector Fair, 14th in a row, was the biggest in its history - both as for the space expanse and the number of the participating exhibitors. The number of paying visitors entering its gate exceeded 12,000... Many thanks to all visitors and to all 260 exhibitors, this time from 35 countries from all around the globe, for coming..."

More pictures from the fair coming in part 2...

Giving Life to a New Catalog - Meet Carine De Pauw [crookscarine]

Meet one of Colnect's most notable contributors and the creator and coordinator of the world's most extensive tea bag catalog, Carine de Pauw [crookscarine]. As her Colnect profile shows, Carine is a serious collector of stamps, phone cards, tea bags and beer mats. She has been a Colnect member since 2005, when Colnect was still a website only catering to phone card collectors.



Carine has just celebrated her birthday and we thought it would be a good time to feature her on Colnect's blog and ask her a few questions.

When and how did you begin collecting in general and tea bags specifically?

I've started to collect stamps during my childhood. Now I have other collections as well, of which the most important ones are phone cards and teabags.
Our daughter began collecting teabags in 1996. She didn't have enough time so I took it over. I'm always looking for new items for all my collections.
Luckily I have a lot of good friends and relatives who are helping me. Every time they are going on holidays, they come back with new collectibles I can add to my collections.



How and why did you start tea bag category on Colnect?

As I knew many people who collected teabags, I've asked Amir [tcawe] to start a tea bag category on Colnect. He was happy to add the new category and I became the coordinator of the tea bags catalog in August 2009.
Now I post scans of my own teabags and of the ones I receive from the other members. For the time being we are with 150 tea bag collectors. The catalog shows 13,236 teabags from 1,139 brands and out of 75 different countries.

How often do you use Colnect?

I'm now using the site on a daily basis to manage my swaps and to add new tea bags to our tea bag catalog.



What do you like best about Colnect?
Colnect is perfect. You can reach many collectors from all over the world.
Of course new members are more than welcome. The more members we have, the bigger our teabag collection will be, and the more possibility we have to exchange.
Last but not least I would like to thank Amir for all the work he's doing.



Thank you Carine for the interview and we all wish you a happy birthday, happy collecting and enjoyable time on Colnect :)

Kolaportið, Reykjavik, Iceland - Icelandic Collectors

Collectors be warned, Frognector is out on the loose and has started his journey around the world. You can meet Frognector and Colnect's founder, Amir Wald, when they pass near you. Big collector club conventions and collector fairs are Frognector's favorites but if you have an interesting collectors shop or own an interesting personal collection, don't hesitate to make contact. If you meet Frognector and get to take a picture with him and your collection, you may win cool prizes such as Colnect memorabilia and Colnect premium membership.

Finding collectors in Iceland was not an easy task for Frognector. When he heard of the weekend market in Kolaportið, Reykjavík he was excited.



The trip there unveiled two stalls (there's supposed to be a third one) of charmingly nice collectors who also sell Icelandic stamps, Icelandic coins, Icelandic banknotes and other collectibles.



Frognector heard about the different collecting clubs in Iceland and learnt that there are relatively a lot of collectors in Iceland. However, as it's a country with a relatively small population, only ~330,000 people, there aren't that many collectors.

A big challenge to collectors in Iceland who wish to exchange with other collectors is the Icelandic customs. Many times they charge a very high tax rate which can make a swap or trade too costly.

We wish to welcome collectors from Iceland to join Colnect and be a part of our growing community. So if you're an Icelander, join us now. If you're not but know collectors from Iceland, help them join Colnect. Iceland has produced some beautiful collectibles and we'd all benefit from having more collectors from Iceland on Colnect.


Happy collecting :)

Colnect on Sberatel, Prague - HUGE Discount to Colnect Members

We are pleased to announce that Colnect will soon present on Sberatel collector fair in Prague. You are welcome to have your picture taken with Frognector and meet some of Colnect's most influential members: Amir Wald [tcawe] , Vadym Sulimenko [Dravec] , Gary Hoff [gazzaoz] and more.

SPECIAL: Colnect members will receive 75% admission discount: Sberatel Voucher for Colnect Members!

Icelandic Collectors in Iceland?

Collectors be warned, Frognector is out on the loose and has started his journey around the world. You can meet Frognector and Colnect's founder, Amir Wald, when they pass near you. Big collector club conventions and collector fairs are Frognector's favorites but if you have an interesting collectors shop or own an interesting personal collection, don't hesitate to make contact. If you meet Frognector and get to take a picture with him and your collection, you may win cool prizes such as Colnect memorabilia and Colnect premium membership.

Where are the collectors in Iceland? Frognector has been circling the island for over 2 weeks and have not yet met one dedicated collector. The views in Iceland are great and the pools are hot, but where are the collectors?



Iceland has a total population of nearly 330,000 people altogether. There are bound to be some dedicated collectors here. There were a few on Colnect before, but none of them is now active. If you know of any, please let us know.

Frognector Sees Coins and Banknotes at the British Museum

Collectors be warned, Frognector is out on the loose and has started his journey around the world. You can meet Frognector and Colnect's founder, Amir Wald, when they pass near you. Big collector club conventions and collector fairs are Frognector's favorites but if you have an interesting collectors shop or own an interesting personal collection, don't hesitate to make contact. If you meet Frognector and get to take a picture with him and your collection, you may win cool prizes such as Colnect memorabilia and Colnect premium membership.

Even at the height of summer, London is not missing rain. There's surely a reason the weather is a common topic of discussion.



But such rainy days offer other interesting alternatives, such as the world famous British Museum which holds amazing pieces of art from around the globe.





Perhaps more interestingly for collectors, there are nice sections of world coins and world banknotes on display.



Even a few bank cards and phone cards are out on display.



So the next time you visit the British Museum in London, don't focus only on eating in the cafeteria.



Focus on the interesting coins, banknotes, bank cards and other items on display.

Charing Cross Collectors Fair

Collectors be warned, Frognector is out on the loose and has started his journey around the world. You can meet Frognector and Colnect's founder, Amir Wald, when they pass near you. Big collector club conventions and collector fairs are Frognector's favorites but if you have an interesting collectors shop or own an interesting personal collection, don't hesitate to make contact. If you meet Frognector and get to take a picture with him and your collection, you may win cool prizes such as Colnect memorabilia and Colnect premium membership.

Quite an odd and interesting collectors fair (or market) is held every week in Charing Cross.



It is located in an underground parking space where dozens of sellers present their coins, banknotes, stamps and, more rarely, other items such as postcards other memorabilia.



Frognector and Colnect's founder, Amir, were introducing Colnect to the sellers and collectors in the market but, with the exception of one Colnect member, it seems most are not yet accustomed or wishing to use the Internet. Some have promised to check Colnect out and perhaps one of them is now reading this post :)



Which collector markets are held next to where you live?

Which collector markets have you visited when being abroad?