How to search ...

Setting your search criteria
The following search options are available on the Auction Search screen.

Search for a specific country - Choose a country from the extensive drop down list (sorted in alphabetical order).

Search for a particular word/phrase - Enter anything you like in this field, and the system will search for lots containing your chosen words. However, getting the most out of this search field can be tricky, and it's worth checking out our hints and tips section below for some useful information to get you started.

Search for a specific lot number - Useful if you already know the lot number you're looking for.

Search for a specific lot type - You may only want to look at cartons, or maybe just albums? Chose your preferred lot type from the drop down list.

Search for a particular auction - We have a number of auctions running at any one time (usually a minimum of two). You may want to limit your search to lots in the auction closing soonest.

Search hints and tips
Not finding what you're looking for? Don't despair - sometimes it just takes a couple of attempts!

Think of different words to use
It may be that you're not getting any results because the words you are searching for are too obscure or specialist. Try thinking of alternative words that may have been used to describe it.

Use specific words instead of general ones
For example, a search for "cigarette cards" will return fewer and more targeted listings than for "cards".

Using and, or, the
Use and, or, the only if you're searching for items containing these words such as "Diana and Charles". If you get too many matches, try your search without them. (See our advanced Advanced Search Tips for the symbols that can link words for a more complex search).

Use punctuation only when required
For example, you'll be successful if you search for Barbados 1945-51 (correct punctuation with hyphen). But don't try Barbados: 1945-51 (unnecessary colon) or Barbados-1945-51 (unnecessary hyphen). As a rule, if punctuation is not necessary - leave it out!

Expand your search by adding or deleting the letter "s"
If searching for covers doesn't return enough matches, find more items with very little overlap by entering cover.

Advanced Search Tips

Search for exact phrases phrases using quotation marks (" ")
By using quotation marks around a phrase, you ensure that only results containing the entire phrase in that sequence are displayed. For example, typing "first day covers" will find items with those exact words in sequence. Without the quotation marks, you could end up with many other results containing the words "first" or "covers". Special Note: The following modifier will not work with this type of search (+) or (*).

Prefix a word with +
Prefix a word with + and the word immediately after it must appear in the results. For example, searching on +inverted +watermark would ensure that only lots that contained both these words will appear in the results, if you did not enter the + sign, the search engine would display results that contained just one of the words. Don't forget - there's no space between the word and the + sign!

Use a wildard (*) for multiple endings
By typing an * (asterisk symbol) at the end of a word, you an search for items with multiple endings. For example, see Specify dates example below.

Specify dates
For example, if you're looking for stamps from the 1940's you could enter 194* and the search engine would display results prefixed by 194. So you should get many results containing dates such as 1943, 1949, 1940's etc.

Sort your results
You can chose how you want the results of your search displayed by specifying criteria in the Display Options fields. Chose from Number of lots per page, description length and Sort By filters. Please be aware that if you chose to view, for example, 100 lots per page of long descriptions the results will take much longer to appear on the screen than if you chose to have 20 lots per page of short descriptions.

A few things to note...

The search feature has been designed so that it searches for parts of word. For example, if you entered the word cat you may find results containing words such as catastrophe or catalogue (unless you typed the word in quotation marks). The search is not case sensitive (i.e. it doesn't matter whether you type in lower case or capitals).

Also, there is a list of "related" words stored in our search database. This means that if you type in, for example, "GB" and ran a search, our search engine would also display results that contain so called related words, such as UK, Britain, Great Britain etc.

You can also access the View Entire Auction feature from the Auction Search screen. See our help section on View Entire Auction for more information on this feature.