HipStamp Scraper

Scrape HipStamp — the largest online marketplace dedicated to postage stamps and philatelic material. Search by keyword, browse by issuing country or category using HipStamp's own taxonomy, look up specific listings by ID or URL, or pull a seller's entire storefront. Get price, condition, catalog number, stamp type, issuing country, year of issue, seller/store details, and images. HTTP-only, no login required.

What this actor does

• Three modes: search (keyword + rich filters), byId (specific listings), bySeller (a seller's whole store)
• Real HipStamp taxonomy: browse by 280+ issuing countries/regions and categories exactly as listed on the site (Europe, Great Britain, Africa, Topicals, Specialty Philately...)
• Full filter set: condition, stamp type, stamp format, centering grade, certificate/certificate grade, year of issue, price range, listing type (auction vs. fixed price), and promo flags (free shipping, on sale, listed today...)
• Rich detail enrichment (optional, on by default): visits each listing page to add country, catalog number, stamp type, condition, topic, year of issue, full description, seller/store info, seller's ships-from country, and the full photo gallery
• Auction-aware: current bid, bid count, and auction end time for live auctions
• Sale-aware: original (pre-markdown) price and discount percent for marked-down listings, plus whether a seller accepts offers
• Empty fields are omitted

Output per listing

• listingId, listingUrl, title, description
• price, currency, priceType (fixed or auction)
• listPrice, discountPercent, saleEndsAt — original pre-markdown price, percent off, and when the markdown expires, when the listing is on sale (fixed-price listings only)
• offersAccepted — whether the seller accepts "Or Best Offer" on this listing
• currentBid, bidCount, auctionEndsAt — auction listings only
• imageUrl — primary listing image
• imageUrls — full photo gallery (all images the seller uploaded, in display order); only present when fetchDetails enrichment ran
• freeShipping, shippingCost, sponsored
• country — the stamp's issuing country/region (from the listing's own item specifics)
• catalogNumber, stampType, condition, stampFormat, centering, topic, yearOfIssue
• hasCertificate, certificateGrade, returnPolicyDays
• itemSpecificsExtra — any additional item-specific attributes the listing shows beyond the standard set
• sellerUsername, sellerStoreUrl, storeName, storeUrl, sellerCountryCode (seller/ships-from country, ISO 3166-1 alpha-2)
• sellerFeedbackCount, sellerFeedbackPercent, sellerRegisteredSince
• recordType: "listing", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / byId / bySeller
searchQuery	string	penny black	Free-text keyword (mode=search)
category	string	–	Browse by issuing country/region/category (mode=search) — real HipStamp taxonomy, e.g. Europe - Germany & Colonies
sellerCountry	string	–	Filter by seller/item location (mode=search) — distinct from category
listingType	string	any	any / product (Buy It Now) / auction
condition	array	–	Mint (NH), Unused, Used, First Day Cover, Cover (Postal History), Not Specified
stampType	array	–	General Issue, Air Mail, Booklets, Officials, Revenues, Semi-Postal, etc.
stampFormat	array	–	Single, Block, Pair, Plate Block, Souvenir Sheet, etc.
centering	array	–	Superb, XF, VF, Fine, VG & Below, etc.
hasCertificate	string	any	any / yes / no
certificateGrade	array	–	Numeric expert grades (100 down to 65 & Below)
showOnly	array	–	Free Shipping, Offers Accepted, Listed Today/This Week/This Month, On Sale, etc.
yearFrom / yearTo	int	–	Year-of-issue range (stamps begin in 1840)
priceMin / priceMax	int	–	Price range in USD
sortBy	string	default	Best Match, Catalog Number, Ending Soonest, Most Popular, Price, Newly Listed
listingIds	array	–	Listing IDs or URLs (mode=byId)
sellerHandle	string	red-fox-stamps	Store handle from the store URL (mode=bySeller)
fetchDetails	bool	true	Enrich each listing with full detail-page data (slower, much more complete)
maxItems	int	40	Hard cap on emitted records (1–2000)
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify Proxy (AUTO)	Optional; reduces the chance of transient rate-limit challenges

Example: search with country + condition filters

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "airmail",
  "category": "173",
  "condition": ["used"],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: browse auctions ending soonest in a price range

{
  "mode": "search",
  "listingType": "auction",
  "sortBy": "ending_asc",
  "priceMin": 5,
  "priceMax": 200,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: look up specific listings

{
  "mode": "byId",
  "listingIds": ["57776828", "https://www.hipstamp.com/listing/some-slug/68155649/"]
}

Example: a seller's whole store

{
  "mode": "bySeller",
  "sellerHandle": "red-fox-stamps",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Use cases

• Collectors — track new listings for a specific country, era, or catalog number
• Dealers — monitor competitor pricing and inventory across sellers
• Price research — pull historical asking prices by condition/grade for a given issue
• Marketplace analytics — analyze category/country trends across HipStamp's inventory
• Collection building — bulk-discover listings matching a specific want-list (country + year range + condition)

FAQ

What's HipStamp? A dedicated online marketplace for postage stamps and philatelic material, similar in spirit to eBay but stamp-only. See hipstamp.com.

Is this affiliated with HipStamp? No — this is a third-party actor that reads HipStamp's public listing pages.

What's the difference between category and sellerCountry? category is the stamp's issuing country/region (HipStamp's own browse taxonomy — e.g. a US-based seller can list a stamp issued by Germany). sellerCountry filters by where the seller/item is physically located, which is a separate HipStamp filter.

Why is fetchDetails on by default? Search-result cards only carry title, price, image, and seller username. Country, condition, catalog number, and the rest of the philatelic detail live on each listing's own page — fetchDetails visits it once per listing to fill those in. Turn it off for a faster, thinner pull.

What's the difference between price and currentBid? For fixed-price (Buy It Now) listings, price is the asking price. For auctions, price mirrors currentBid — the current highest bid.

Why do some listings lack a country or topic field? Sellers don't always fill in every item specific on HipStamp; only fields the seller actually populated are included.

How fresh is the data? Real-time — every run reads HipStamp's live listing pages directly.

Are prices in USD? Yes, all HipStamp listings are priced in USD.

Why might showOnly: ["free_shipping"] occasionally include a listing that isn't marked free-shipping? It won't — free_shipping, make_offer, on_sale, on_sale_25, and on_sale_50 are all re-checked against each listing's own extracted data (freeShipping, offersAccepted, listPrice/discountPercent) before being returned, so the emitted results are always accurate for those flags. Only the recency flags (Listed Today/This Week/This Month) rely on HipStamp's own server-side filtering, since there's no reliably-extracted listing-date field to re-verify against.

What are listPrice and discountPercent? When a seller marks a fixed-price listing down from an original price, HipStamp shows both prices (the current price and a struck-through original price). listPrice is that original price and discountPercent is the percent off, both computed directly from the listing's own data — not estimates. Only present when a listing is actually on sale; not applicable to auctions.

What's in imageUrls? The full photo gallery for the listing (every image the seller uploaded, not just the primary thumbnail), in the order they appear on the listing page. Populated only when fetchDetails is on, since the gallery lives on the listing's own detail page.

What is sellerCountryCode? The seller's ships-from country, as a 2-letter ISO 3166-1 code (e.g. US, GB, DE) — taken from the listing's own shipping/return-policy data. This is different from country (the stamp's issuing country) and from the sellerCountry search filter (which filters by the same underlying seller location).

What does category cover? HipStamp's real browse taxonomy: top-level regions (Europe, Africa, Asia, Great Britain, etc.) plus the individual issuing countries/territories nested under each region (e.g. Germany, France, Hong Kong under their respective regions), plus non-geographic groups like Topicals, Publications & Supplies, and Specialty Philately.