NobleSpirit 2023 Year in Review
2023 was an exciting year for NobleSpirit, filled with successful catalogue sales, well-attended events, and fulfilling community engagement throughout the hobby.
Events & Engagement
NobleSpirit founder Joseph Cortese providing a coin appraisal at our Stamp & Coin Appraisal Roadshow event at the Spellman Museum.
This year we held a number of exciting events in partnership with the Spellman Museum of Stamps and Postal History. Most notable was our very first Stamp & Coin Appraisal Roadshow, where community members brought their collections for a free appraisal from our and Spellman’s team of philatelic and numismatic experts. The event was a smash success and we had a full house!
We had the honor of attending the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Awards Gala at the National Smithsonian Postal Museum in Washington DC. It was a wonderful night to connect with our fellow philatelic community members and celebrate the impact the award winners have made in the hobby.
The NobleSpirit team at the Smithsonian Philatelic Achievement Awards Gala.
We also attended a number of other events, including hosting a booth at Westpex and attending the New Hampshire Antiques Show, where we networked with local dealers and explored old treasures.
New Video Channel!
We also launched our company YouTube video channel this year! We produced a lot of exciting video content, including an inside look at some appraisals we provided at the Roadshow event, interviews and discussions with philatelic community members, and in-depth review of collections we put up for sale. Featured interview guests include: Brian Howard, the new Executive Director of the Spellman Museum, Jennifer Miller, Jasmine Lacerte, Todd Gantzer, and Leven Parker.
Catalogue Sales
In reviewing our eBay performance and page traffic for 2023, it was difficult to find a significant contrast from the previous year, with a few key exceptions.
In 2023 we doubled the number of curated catalogue auction sales for our consignors from the previous year in 2022. Since our inaugural catalogue auction sale in October 2021, we have now held some 44 dedicated traditional auction style catalogue sales.
These catalogues are an innovative sales solution exclusive to NobleSpirit on eBay. The catalogues allow you to see what goes up for sale on eBay, before it goes up for sale on eBay. These catalogues provide the lead time necessary to discover, research, and plan informed buying decisions for highly focused specialized as well as general areas of interest.
Catalogue sales led to an increase in the number of high value items and an increase in the minimum lot value company wide. Each and every catalogue sale brought new buyers to eBay, many of whom were not previously registered on the marketplace. This produced a sizable increase in customer acquisition and retention.
NobleSpirit’s Presence and Sales Numbers
For NobleSpirit, 2023 statistical traffic numbers, quite interestingly remained consistent with the previous year with respect to;
just over: 120 million impressions
just over 2 million page views.
However the greatest meaningful difference was fewer items sold: 21,000, with a 160% increased total sales price.
The eBay Impact
With a decrease in overall items sold and an increase in total sales price, this past year represented a shift for the company that we're seeing across all collectibles. Higher value and more curated collectibles are making their way to eBay, the largest collectibles marketplace in the world. eBay continues to be the undisputed leader in collectibles at every level, from hobby to investor. Perhaps the greatest testament to eBay's dominance is the ability of a marketplace to run Stamp, Coin, and Paper Money catalogues side by side in quantifiable ways that are simply not possible on a secular level. It's about the power of numbers.
Over the past 23 years, eBay has perfectly curated the largest collectibles customer base globally. It's in the tens of millions (10,000,000's) simply because collectors love to collect everything where everything lives and breathes. That would be the what, why, and where that more and more companies are realizing to be the essential power and competitive advantage of online marketplaces and digital catalogues.