The Most Influential Man in Stamp Collecting... Who Didn’t Make the Linn’s 2022 List

Let’s be honest — if you asked 100 philatelists to name the most influential person in the hobby today, most would list a big-name dealer, an expertizer, or maybe someone who’s built an auction house empire. But chances are, almost none would say Pierre Omidyar.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

And yet, he’s the one who completely changed the way we buy, sell, and even discover stamps.

A Hobby Stuck in the Past

When I wrote my critique of Linn’s 2022 list of the most influential philatelists, I wasn’t just nitpicking names. I was asking a more fundamental question: What does influence really look like in this hobby today? Because if we’re being honest, many of the names on that list reflect a world of stamp collecting that’s fading away. They represent auction houses, expert committees, and printed publications. Important, sure. But not transformative.

Pierre Omidyar, on the other hand, didn’t just influence stamp collecting. He reinvented its marketplace.

The Birth of a Revolution

It started innocently enough. In 1995, Omidyar was just a 28-year-old computer programmer who liked tinkering with code. Over Labor Day weekend, he launched a little side project called AuctionWeb. The first item sold? A broken laser pointer. It was the start of what would become eBay.

What Omidyar created wasn’t just an online auction site. It was a platform that let people around the world connect over niche interests, collectibles, and curiosities. Stamp collectors were among the earliest adopters.

By 1997, eBay was hosting nearly 800,000 auctions per day. A significant portion of those were in collectibles, with stamps holding a steady, prominent place. Suddenly, a collector in Iowa could sell a classic Mauritius stamp to a buyer in Berlin. A dealer in Tokyo could clear out inventory to bidders in Toronto. Borders blurred. Time zones became irrelevant. The market, once local and fragmented, became global and constant.

My First Steps Into a New World

I first discovered eBay in late 1996. There were no photos hosted on the platform back then—if you wanted to show an image of your stamp, you had to upload it to your own website and manually link it into your listing with HTML. You basically needed to know how to code just to sell a stamp.

Back then, eBay’s pricing structure looked nothing like it does today. Listing fees were steep — $0.25 just to list an item under $10, $0.50 for items up to $24.99, and so on — while final value fees were lower, starting around 5% and decreasing for higher-priced items. To keep upfront costs down, many sellers listed their stamps at $0.01 or $0.99 and let the market decide the value.

There were no credit card payments or PayPal yet; most transactions were completed by personal check or money order, making international sales slow, cumbersome, and often impractical. By 1998, I remember making weekly trips to the bank with a stack of checks an inch or two thick, totaling everything twice on my ten-key calculator so the teller wouldn’t have to. We didn’t wait for checks to clear — we relied on the buyer’s reputation, which really mattered back then, since buyers could still receive negative feedback. If someone wanted their stamps shipped quickly, solid feedback was essential.

The results were often astonishing. Items that sat unsold in my local market—where the only option was a small-town stamp shop charging full catalog value—were suddenly being bid up to incredible prices by collectors around the country. eBay didn’t just offer exposure; it unlocked value trapped by geography and outdated pricing models.

The New Marketplace

Before eBay, stamp dealing was a tightly controlled world. You had mail-bid sales, retail shops, stamp shows, and a small group of high-end auction houses. Access was limited. Inventory was finite. Prices were opaque.

Then Omidyar cracked it wide open.

eBay gave every collector a storefront. It gave every seller a global audience. It created a new type of dealer: the casual enthusiast who listed a few items a week, and the power seller who built a full-fledged business entirely online.

Some of those power sellers have become the backbone of the hobby. In fact, two of the largest eBay stamp sellers in the world are both based in Flushing, New York: NYStamps and CKStamps. As of this writing, NYStamps has sold approximately 2.4 million items, while CKStamps is at around 835,000. These aren’t just impressive numbers—they’re staggering by philatelic standards and each deserve to be on the Linn’s 2022 list.

When I worked at HR Harmer, these two firms weren’t just notable—they were dominant. They consistently ranked as the number one and number two buyers at our auctions, representing a huge percentage of total sales. And they weren’t alone. Many auction houses today depend on top eBay sellers to buy large volumes of material. In other words, even the traditional side of the business now runs on digital rails laid by Omidyar.

A Hobby for Everyone

One of Omidyar’s greatest contributions was leveling the playing field. Before eBay, stamp collecting could feel exclusive. You needed access to catalogs, insider knowledge, and often a relationship with a dealer to get the good stuff.

Now? Anyone with a smartphone and a curiosity about stamps can jump in.

eBay became the great equalizer. It brought transparency to pricing. It brought buyer protection policies. It made rare material accessible and common material searchable. And perhaps most importantly, it invited in new collectors who never would have set foot in a stamp shop or subscribed to a printed catalog.

The Quiet Giant

Despite his impact, Omidyar has never sought recognition from the philatelic community. He doesn’t give keynote speeches at stamp shows. He doesn’t serve on expert committees or fund exhibitions. He simply built a platform — and let the collectors do the rest.

This didn’t come from within the philatelic world. It came from a programmer who saw the potential in broken laser pointers.

But that’s exactly why he matters.

In transforming how stamps are bought and sold, Pierre Omidyar reshaped the entire ecosystem. He empowered individuals. He expanded access. He made the global market immediate and personal.

A Lasting Impact

He didn’t publish a catalog. He didn’t curate a collection. He didn’t build an auction house. But in the context of stamp collecting, his contribution is both massive and undeniable.

He built the platform that made the stamp world bigger, faster, and more open than ever before.

That, in my book, makes him the most influential figure in modern philately.