Our system does not show you stamps that are already sold.
No "Sold Out" problem!

So what does "Reserved" mean? When someone puts a stamp into their shopping cart, that stamp becomes "Reserved". We don't take it out of the database right away, because it may become available again. The shopper who has it may delete the item from their purchases, or they may not complete their order. If a Shopping Cart is inactive for four hours, it is subject to deletion, and the stamps become available again. About 10% of the time, the order is not completed and the stamp is returned to stock.

I really wanted that stamp! How do I check to see if it becomes available again? If you want to check on the status of a stamp that you saw was reserved, you may do whatever search you did before, i.e. browse the country or category. Or, you may make a note of the stock number and search specifically for the stock number by entering it into the "Keyword" box. If the stamp shows up in the search, it's available. Your 10% chance came through! Grab it!

The stamp didn't show as reserved when I did the search, but when I clicked on it, it was suddenly reserved! When you executed the search, the system checked the database and showed you the status of the stamps at that moment. But two people may look at the same page at the same time, so its status may change in the time between calling up the thumbnails page and clicking on the stamp to view it. In fact, even after you clicked on the stamp to view it, somebody else may be doing the same thing and click on the "Add to Cart" button seconds before you. If that happens, you will get the "Sorry, you missed it!" message. (Hope it doesn't happen to you too often!).