Collectors Welcomed To Presenting Themselves and Their Collections With Videos

Collectors from all around the world present their collection on Colnect. Now, a short video may easily be added to a collector's profile. In this short video the collector can talk a bit about herself and her collection. The video is available to all using a green PLAY button next to the collector's profile picture. See for example Colnect's founder video here.



This new feature is available through an integration with a cool new start up company named VanityVid. Colnect is one of the first platforms which will be implementing their fine product.

Tea Bag Catalog Displaying Over 6,006 Tea Bags

Colnect's tea bag catalog has doubled in size since we last announced its growth and now features over 6,006 tea bags from 66 countries. Perhaps not yet among Colnect's biggest categories, tea bags have developed a significant community of tea bag collectors on Colnect to connect and swap with. We would like to commend the hard work of the tea bags coordinator, Carine De Pauw, who tirelessly works to make our tea bag catalog the best in the world.



If you are a tea bag collector, feel free to sign up on Colnect and upload items from your collection to the site. The current success and future greatness of Colnect rests on the shoulders of devoted volunteers like Carine and YOU.

2,222 Gift Cards on Our Gift Card Catalog for Collectors

Gift cards is one of the new categories on Colnect, added just a month ago. It has, however, got a great boost and now boasts over 2,222 gift cards cataloged. The list of gift card collectors from all around the world is still relatively small but we hope that as the category grows, more gift card collectors would join in and manage their personal collection on Colnect.

Many thanks Claude Martin [Claude], who has kick-started the gift cards category and is now the coordinator in charge of it.

Collectors Collect and Connect on Colnect - Now With Over 13,131 Members

Collectors from all around the world manage their personal collections and swap with other collectors using Colnect's personal collection management and unique Auto-Matching feature.


Continuing the Colnect tradition of publishing statistics in numbers that are more fun to remember rather than rounded, we're happy to report that there are now more than 13,131 collectors on Colnect. This is nearly a 20% growth during the last three months since we last announced 11,111 collectors on Colnect. We deeply apologize for not announcing when we passed the 12,345 collectors mark but we'll try to do a big one when Colnect surpassed the 123,456 members :)

If you're a collector and haven't yet checked out Colnect, you're most welcomed to join our community and enjoy our unique free services. Happy collecting :)

Free Stamp Catalog Surpassed 111,111 Stamps

Stamp collectors from around the world work together to create and enhance Colnect's free online stamp catalog. Recently, the catalog has been growing much faster than before and it now has over 111,111 stamps listed from 223 countries. During the last 30 days alone, 6545 stamps were added.

Collectors who contributed information to the catalog deserve the credit for the growth but a special credit is due to Klauss [Lola22] who has been helping tirelessly as our new stamps coordinator supervising the contribution and editing of other collectors.

You're welcomed to help Colnect grow bigger and better by adding missing items on our catalog.
We also welcome new categories on Colnect so if you collect baseball cards, airsickness bags, beer mats, lights or anything else mass-produced, don't hesitate to contact us on Colnect and you may become a category coordinator.

Happy collecting :)

Gift Cards & Casino Player Cards - NEW Catalogs for Collector on Colnect

Collecting gift cards? Perhaps casino player cards? We're happy to announce these two new categories are now a part of Colnect and we've started creating extensive catalogs for these categories.

The new gift cards catalog, started and coordinated by Claude Martin [Claude], already has over 700 gift cards in it.


Casino player cards, given by casinos around the world, had a more modest start by Moti Krawitz [motikr] with over 30 cards in the catalog. With your help we could make our catalogs grow.


What about more categories on Colnect? Be those lighters, baseball cards or any other mass produced collectibles out there, we welcomed these categories on Colnect. If you're a serious collector and would like to head a new category, please read how to add more collectibles to Colnect.

Cheaters / Thieves - Swapping Tips

Colnect does its best to try and prevent cheaters and thieves from abusing Colnect members. Although most swaps are good for both sides, there are some cheaters out there. The following tips may help you avoid some common scams:

Swapping tips

* If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.
* A collector with a few or no positive ratings should always send items first. If you're a new member, your best bet is to swap with members who have many positive ratings. After sending a package to a collector, you may give a neutral rating and change it to positive once you receive your package. This will help in preventing mass-cheats. See: Ratings
* Always use registered packages and keep the receipt. If you didn't register the package, it's your responsibility.
* Be very suspicious if the collector's real name or other details are different on Colnect and on the mailing address.
* Alert us about any suspicious offer you receive. This will help keeping other members protected.


For more information, check the Collector Warnings and Ratings Forum.

Recent Warning

The following person has opened numerous accounts on Colnect and got many negative ratings on all of them. If any collector from Serbia would like to report this person to the local police, please do. Here are some of the details used:

Dejan Kostic (or Marina Kostic)
Voje Micica 81
Bratmilovce
16000 Leskovac
Serbia

or

Mirjana Rajkovic
Radnicka 5 / 28
16000 Leskovac
Serbia

Please read more information about this person here

Colnect, Frognector and a Guitar at the Hitech Annual Conference HTIA2010

Colnect has presented for two days at the Hitech Annual Conference in Jerusalem. Colnect got its booth as a prize for winning a competition done by The Wadi.

Colnect had its promotional video on display at all times. If you haven't seen it yet, you're welcomed to check out Colnect's YouTube channel.

Colnect's founder (yours truly) was playing guitar to get the attention of each and every passerby and tell them about Colnect and how unique and different it is.

The most expensive phone card issued in Israel was on display, though not for sale. It is a special phone card issued by Bezeq and given to the late prime minister of Israel, Itzhak Rabin. There are only 3 more such phone cards known to exist and the one we had on display is in mint condition and is worth a few thousands of dollars.

Colnect decided to clearly differentiate its booth from those of other companies by offering shots of Arak, a 50% strong alcoholic beverage, to those who could say three times quickly "Collectors collect and connect on Colnect". Here are a few videos of people who have taken on the challenge:







Want to join us for a drink?


I would like to use this opportunity to thank Ofer and Lara for helping me out in arranging the booth and presenting Colnect to the visitors in the conference.
For more pictures and video you're welcomed to check out and "like" Colnect's Facebook page.

Recommend Collectors and Collectibles on Colnect to Your FaceBook Friends and WIN Prizes!

Who are the collectors you recommend on Colnect?
Which are the collectible items you recommend on Colnect?

If you have a FaceBook account, you can now easily recommend your favorite collectors and collectible items from Colnect to your FaceBook friends. To see the prizes you can win check out Colnect's news page.

Here's how to recommend a collector:


and how to recommend an item from Colnect's huge catalogs:


Happy recommending :)

Colnect's Phone Card Catalog, The World's Biggest, Has Over 230,000 Phone Cards Listed

Colnect's phonecard catalog reached a new milestone today, as 230,000 phonecards have now been uploaded onto Colnect for collectors to mark in their "Collection", "Swap" and "Wish" lists. Tbis monumental achievement could not have made without the tremendous work of our volunteer phonecard contributors and especially our phonecards coordinator, Ignacio F. López Vico. It is because of his efforts and the contributions of many dedicated collectors on Colnect, that our phonecards catalog, the world's biggest, keep growing so quickly and have already passed 230,000 phone cards.



If you would to like to help upload some of the next phonecards or any other collectible to Colnect, please feel free to contact us.

Collectors Gain From Colnect and WorthPoint Partnership

We're happy to announce a new partnership between Colnect and Worthpoint.

WorthPoint is the place to help you discover your hidden wealth. WorthPoint can make you money in any financial climate. Value, sell and acquire with precision, through:
* Extensive valuation data & expert advice
* Networking with and promotion to trading partners
* Access to the largest auction houses & other trading venues
* Inventory from hundreds of antique dealers
* A collecting community 350,000-strong and growing every day

Collectors from both Colnect and Worthpoint can now benefit from special offers.

コレクトしてコネクトする時、コルネクとするのさ

Colnect Collectors Community promotional video with Japanese audio.



牛(cow)：あー、またやっちまったよ。
かえる(frog)：どうしんだい？

牛：またこのコインだよ。
かえる：いいコインじゃないか。

牛：そうだけど、もう僕のコレクションにあるやつなんだよ。
かえる：あら？

牛：それにもうこの持ってるコインのために他のいいやつをあげちゃったんだよ。
かえる：なんでさ？

牛：だってさぁ、もう持ってるってことを忘れちゃってたんだよ。親切なコレクターさんが交換リストを送ってきてくれてさ。それで自分のカタログを調べてたんだけど、あんまり長いから間違えちゃったんだよ。
かえる：ああ、それは君がコルネクトをやってないからだね。

牛：コレクトしてるよ！コイン収集さ。
かえる：コレクトはしてても、コルネクトしてないってことさ。

牛：コルネクトって何？
かえる：僕のテレフォンカードコレクションの管理のために使ってるいいウェブサイトだよ。

牛：そういえばかなりたくさん持ってるよね。
かえる：そうそう。５３１２個あるんだよ。

牛：全部数えてるの？
かえる：そうじゃないさ。世界一大きなテレフォンカードカタログがそのサイトにあってね、僕は自分の持ってるカードをそこでマークしてるのさ。それから僕が欲しいと思ってるカードや交換してもいいカードもマークしてある。それでコルネクとサイトは自動的に他の人のコレクションとマッチさせて、トレードしやすくしてくれてるのさ。

牛：いいね。いくらかかるの？
かえる：無料だよ。コインもあるし。カタログは参加者が作ってるんだ。


牛：じゃあ君がカタログを今作ってるのかい？
かえる：そうじゃなくてさ。ウィキペデアと同じ原理さ。

牛：へ？
かえる：僕が自主的にやってる。

牛：なんで？
かえる：このサイトが他の人は僕のことも助けてくれてるからね。

牛：君だけだろう？
かえる：すでにもう世界各国から１００人以上のボランティアが参加してるんだよ。

牛：へー。この世界のみんなは英語ができるみたいだね。
かえる：コルネットのコレクターのほとんどは英語を使わないよ。３５カ国語で利用可能だからね。

牛：コルネクとって言ったっけ？
かえる：そう。コレクトしてコネクトする時、コルネクとするのさ。

牛：誰とコネクトするの？
かえる：世界中とさ。

牛：気づいたんだけど。
かえる：何？

牛：僕らもコレクティブルなんだよね。
かえる：うん。そうだね。

牛：ってことは僕らもコルネクと上で取引されるってこと？
かえる：そうだけど、、、それって変な感じだな。

Frognector's Visit in TheMarker's ComVention 2010 - First Part

Frognector has decided to share with us his impressions of the Internet convention he has visited today. @Frognector is @Colnect's superstar frog and has been attracting collectors to Colnect for the last year.

Dear fellow frogs and humans (especially collectors as the rest are simply less interesting...), please bear with me as this is my first post outside the swamp where I usually pass my time. Your comments are welcomed here and will motivate me to post more pictures.

This year's ComVention was held in a much scarier place than last year. A dinosaur roared at me and although he initially scared me, he actually just wanted to compliment my green outfit.



As I'm against war, I jumped a green soldier that was running amok in the convention and told him he definitely should collect militaria instead of actually firing it.



Some of the geeks around didn't know me and looked at me pretty oddly. Luckily, this guy had a green shirt so we had a good connection.



But not every goof with a green garment is that friendly. I was almost eaten alive.



Luckily I was saved by a guy with a mask.



And went on to talk about Israeli Palestinian business with a red head.




Using Ouriel's new iPad, I explained to her Colnect has long been available in both Arabic and Hebrew, as well as 48 more languages.



She was quite impressed and...

to be continued

If you want to see the second part you'll have to comment here.

11111 Collectors Collect and Connect on Colnect

Collectors from all around the world manage their personal collections and swap with other collectors using Colnect's personal collection management and unique Auto-Matching feature.



Not long ago we announced there more than ten thousand collectors have already become members of Colnect and today we're happy to announce there are over 11111 collectors on Colnect. There has been a record growth on March and we hope to soon break that record. Technical difficulties rose as a result of the growth and we've been working very hard to optimize Colnect and upgrade our servers to better cater for our collectors. Meanwhile, our free stamp catalog has been growing rapidly and recently passed the 100,000 stamps marker.

If you're a collector and haven't yet checked out Colnect, you're most welcomed to join our community and enjoy our unique free services. Happy collecting :)

Colnect's Catalog Surpasses 100,000 Stamps

Colnect's stamp catalog reached an incredible milestone today, as 100,000 stamps have now been uploaded onto Colnect for collectors to mark in their "Collection", "Swap" and "Wish" lists. Tbis monumental achievement could not have made without the tremendous work of our volunteer stamp contributors and especially our stamps coordinators, Fabien Eicke and Klaus Jochimsen. It is because of their collaborative efforts that stamps have become the 2nd collectible category (after phonecards) to eclipse 100,000 items in our catalogs.



Currently, the United States has by far the largest quantity of stamps in our catalog with over 10,000. This next closest countries are France at just under 4,000 and East Germany with slightly more than 3,000. If you would to like to help upload some of our next 100,000 stamps or any other collectible to Colnect, please feel free to contact us.

Stamp Collecting as an Investment - The Basics

This guest post was made for Colnect by Vincenzo Desroches. If you want to contribute your collecting-related article to Colnect, please contact us.


While you may not be able to use your forex broker’s charts to track the philatelic market when collecting stamps, this long-favored hobby for people of all ages generally involves an element of investment. Nevertheless, much like in other fields of investing, a large percentage of stamp collectors do not buy the type of stamps that might appreciate over time.

This means having a good foundation in how the stamp market operates and values stamps can make a big difference to your success in investing in stamps.

Looking at Stamps as Investments

Many people still think of collecting stamps as child’s play, but certain stamps command high prices and are treated like a collector’s classic automobile might be. While most stamps carry and keep their notional values, such high-value collector’s stamps can be worth over $1,000,000 at auction prices and it is this sort of stamp which typically comprises a high-end stamp collector’s investment portfolio. Stamp indices have even been added to Bloomberg which show recent annual increases of over 7%.

In addition, most stamp collectors will attempt to identify any trends they see occurring in the stamp market. They will then usually consider buying stamps as an investment when they think it likely that the stamp will rise in value. This process is similar to how an investor might pick a stock. Nevertheless, stamp collectors generally must wait for a considerable period in order for their stamp investment to show a profit, if it ever does.

Stamp Collecting Equipment

Several simple and inexpensive items you may want to invest in for stamp collecting consist of:

• A stamp album or stock book – protective sleeves for individual stamps are preferred by serious collectors that do not use stamp hinges.

• Stamp tongs – these are special tongs with rounded tips to prevent damage to stamps from handling them manually.

• A set of “stamp hinges” – these small pieces of transparent, lightly gummed paper are used to attach stamps to the stamp album. (See section below.)

• A magnifying glass – get one strong enough to see details in the stamp’s paper.

Avoid Using Stamp Hinges With Especially Valuable Stamps

While stamp hinges continue to be a popular way to affix stamps to an album, be aware that many serious investment collectors now shun the practice. This is reflected in the market for “unhinged” stamps being greater than that for stamps that were previously hinged.

In fact, since the middle of the last century, the price differential in favor of unhinged stamps has grown to 2 to 1, largely due to the remnants of hinge marks that show up when the stamp is held to the light.

This condition of hinged stamps involves the adhering of the original gum on the stamp to the gum on the hinge, which can strip off a layer of paper, creating what philatelists call “hinge or stamp thin.” For this reason, unhinged stamps have come to be preferred by most collectors, and so collectors should consider this when valuing and storing stamps.

Stamp Valuation

A stamp’s value is determined by such factors that include its:

• Condition – stamps in mint condition sell for higher prices than damaged stamps, which often sell at only a small fraction of mint value.

• Availability – assess the number of stamps of this particular kind that are currently for sale on the stamp market.

• Demand – how many collectors are interested in buying this stamp in both the stamp’s country of origin and elsewhere.

• Origin of the Sale – prices for stamps often differ between countries.

• Future Value – an assessment of what collectors anticipate will be the stamp’s future value.

Conclusion

In general, stamp collecting can provide people with a popular combination of a satisfying hobby, and can even be a potential investment, when a collectible stamp appreciates in value. Not only can this pursuit give a considerable degree of satisfaction by obtaining small - but potentially very valuable - works of art, but it can also provide a constructive way for a person to distract themselves from life’s other pressures.

Nevertheless, future stamp investors need to be aware that stamp collecting does not enjoy the same degree of liquidity that other investment markets like the coin, forex or stock market does. Therefore, stamp collectors need to understand that their stamps may take years to show substantial gains in value, and even to cover the relatively high price spread between a stamp dealer’s buying and selling prices.

Nevertheless, stamp collectors who pursue their passion with the benefits of patience and knowledge about the philatelic market can often find lucrative investment opportunities in their pastime. Naturally, you might make considerably more money faster with other investments, but collectors often enjoy just looking through their beautiful stamp collection at home.

Hotel Key Cards Catalog Presents Over 5,000 Cards

Collecting hotel key cards? Collectors from around the world have created and maintain a unique catalog of hotel key cards. The catalog now has over 5,000 hotel key cards, after over 800 cards have been added during the last month.
Colnect's hotel key cards catalog is created in a wiki-fashion by collectors. Their efforts are coordinated by Ignacio F López Vico [iflvico] from Spain. He is one of Colnect's most important team members, being also responsible for Colnect's phone cards category.

Collectors from around the world can now use this catalog (as well as other Colnect catalogs available for other categories) to manage their own person collection. New categories will soon be added to Colnect so stay tuned.

Collectors Joining Colnect on March - a New Record

March has shown record growth to Colnect's collectors base. Many collectors still use Colnect without registering and enjoy the free catalogs offered on the site. Over 60,000 people have visited Colnect on March. However, to manage their personal collection with Colnect, collectors have to register Colnect. This March, as Colnect passed the 10,000 members milestone, a record growth of 11% (1,033 new collectors) was achieved.

We extend our warm welcome to all new members of Colnect. Colnect is built by our members and the more collectors join, the better our catalogs will get.

10,000 Collectors Collect and Connect on Colnect

Colnect has achieved probably its most prestigious milestone to date, as we now have 10,000 registered collectors from all over the world! This accomplishment was greatly accelerated by a record number of new collector sign-ups over the past couple of months, a trend that surely indicates Colnect is on the verge of becoming one of the world's most popular collecting sites. Perhaps even more impressively, 109 countries spanning every continent are now represented by at least one active Colnect collector. As our international reach expands, we can only except even more collectors to discover the benefits of using Colnect to collect and connect with fellow collectors from all around the globe.




While all this is obviously great news for the site, individual collectors (like YOU) stand to benefit most from Colnect's rapid development. More collectors means more possible swap partners as well as a greater number of potential contributors to Colnect. This is a crucial point, since Colnect's catalogs are created and managed entirely in a wiki-like fashion, meaning the catalogs can only be as complete as the resources of our collectors. In addition, having an incredibly diverse membership on Colnect will open up many more opportunities for new collectible categories, with several of these already in the planning or development phase. As always, feel free to contact us if you would like to assist Colnect with language translations, adding new items to the catalogs, or editing the current catalog data.

Thousands of Indian Students Yearn to Join Colnect Family

In response to the partnership we reached with Freshersworld.com, India's most popular students web-site, thousands of young Indians submitted applications to become Campus Ambassadors for that site and are now eligible to fill three exclusive Colnect internship places! We are overjoyed to see the dedication from some of the sharpest minds on campuses across India. As of March 9, 139 applicants from around the country have been chosen to represent their schools as Campus Ambassadors for Freshersworld. This reflects the enormous talent pool on display at Indian universities and the potential of its students to achieve greatness in their endeavours. From these, the top three finishers in the final phase will win the grand prize of an internship and will have the opportunity to work on various projects at Colnect.



Given our ambitious plans to continue building Colnect into the best collectors web site, the addition of three sharp, committed young minds to assist us with many technological and managerial projects will be most welcome. For our collectors, this means that we should be more responsive to your questions and concerns, while also having more resources at our disposal to make long-term improvements that should enhance everyone's collection experience. However, the key to Colnect's future greatness is having dedicated contributors who provide their unique expertise of a particular collectible or language to benefit everyone! If you would like to help with catalog additions, modifications, or language translations, please feel free to Contact Us.

Facebook: Celebrate Your Birthday Every Day

Since Facebook's inception and rapid ascent to global prominence, many users have doubtlessly experimented with ways to play practical jokes on their friends or to get a certain message across, depending on their reasons for using the social networking site. One simple yet highly amusing method has been for a user to change their birthday periodically in order to repeatedly generate the massive flood of greetings left on their walls from well-meaning "friends". All that is required to pull this off is a simple profile modification and a sufficient number of gullable and/or forgetful friends. Due to Facebook automatically displaying birthday notifications on every friend's homepage, this can also be a highly effective way to generate clicks on your profile and attract attention, even if some people don't write on your wall or actually see through your little ruse.

To test out this practice, founder of Colnect conducted a small experiment whereby he and an associate entered a fake "Facebook birthday" into their profiles on two separate occasions within a 4-5 week period. One interesting stat he wished to uncover was how many "friends" would obliviously send him birthday greetings on both days. As he observed, his Facebook friends list is a particularly fascinating test group, since it consists of people he has fairly close personal relationships with and those who are entirely virtual connections made to promote his collectors web-site. In the end, he found the results of his skullduggery both humourous and befuddling.



On his original fake birthday, he received a total of 63 birthday wishes on his Facebook Wall and Inbox, while his associate's profile accepted 47 such misplaced greetings only a couple of days following his non-existent celebrations. Perhaps most interesting is that he also received three "Happy Birthday" phone calls from real world friends who believed the information on Facebook, despite having attended his real birthday celebrations only six months earlier. "I didn't realize how forgettable my party was," the chairman of the collectibles web-site quipped. In addition, his 2nd fraudulent Facebook birthday generated 62 well wishes, including 26 repeat offenders from the first day barely one month prior, while the second time around his associate's profile received 57 greetings and 17 duplicate wishers from before.

Although the direct ramifications of this may be trivial, it does perhaps illustrate a tendency of users to automatically accept information displayed on Facebook as absolute fact, even when contrary evidence is readily available (in the cases of those who wished the same person "Happy Birthday" twice within a matter of weeks and his real world birthday party attendees). Savvy Facebook users and spammers could easily utilize this fact to manipulate others for far more cynical purposes. It also brings up the question as to why Facebook lets its members change their birthday an infinite number of times, given that by definition it's a static piece of information. While it's understandable that someone could lie or mistakenly enter an incorrect birthday when they first registered and wish to correct this, allowing users to alter their birthday on multiple occasions seems to be opening the door to such blatant shenanigans.

So what's your opinion on this? Should FaceBook limit the ability to modify one's birthday?