The Future Of Stamps ?

I think we all agree, change is certain.

Our problems arise when we "want" it to remain,
"want" it to change in the way we desire,
or 'want" it <not> to change.

As philatelists, I think we should be there to observe,
study the post,and the changes, and collect what gives us enjoyment.
Nothing more.

Face the facts, the average stamp collector is getting older! How many young people do you see at stamp shows? How many young people want to collect stamps when they have access to all sorts of electronic games. Games for their phone, the IPod and the PDA it is a loosing battle to get the young to stay involved, once you succeed in getting their attention. As collectors we try to get the young involved but what about the dealers, the APS, the various magazines, are they all doing their part? I suspect that many are. Then there's the local stamp club, the last one I belonged to was in Virginia and I don't remember seeing any person below the age of 25 but perhaps once or twice.

My point is this; we all enjoy stamp collecting and for good reason. Most of us have been doing it for some time. We see new collectors joining this forum and other forums but, not a lot of them. This can be an expensive hobby and its the older person who can afford it. Thus we are the ones targeted. Somehow the focus, the target needs to be changed to the young if this hobby is to survive with the individual collector. We'll still be able to view stamps in museums and other places but the individual collector will fade away.

So, what am I doing to get the young involved? I'm trying to get a local stamp club organized that will focus on both young and old. Waht are you doing to get the young involved?

Sorry, I didn't mean to get on a soap box.

Now that I'm back into collecting, I stopped by a local shop to check out Linn's and was shocked at how small it is for the price. I remember it back when it was a newspaper, printed on news print, hundreds of pages every week. I subscribed for many years and I have boxes and boxes of back issues stored in the garage. Now, it's a little, very thin monthly magazine for $5.99? Just not worth the cost, sorry.

I agree with you artlaunier, but the fact is, the postal service is the biggest killer of new collectors out there. Back when I started, it wasn't hard to run to the post office and get new stamps as they came out, I used to have a regular route and would get coil stamps out of their automated machines because it was hard to get in when the counter was open. Now, it's all self-adhesives (which I detest), and the postal service is on it's way to bankruptcy. There are few dealers and the ones I've seen just aren't all that customer service friendly. If you can't easily get the product, how can you expect a young collector to want to collect it? Add to the fact that there are around a hundred new issues released every year and that's a big chunk of change, especially for someone on a limited budget who is also trying to collect older issues at the same time. For those who might be interested, it's probably overwhelming. I'm not surprised that there aren't as many collectors entering our ranks as there once were, but I don't think it's all because of other distractions. There are plenty of them collecting other things, just not stamps.

i hope we do not go the way of "trade cards" I find them in collections from time to time they were used to advertise products like soap and sewing machines etc; I took them to stamp and post card shows but received very little interest..its a shame..they were quite attractive..i suppose there is a very tiny group out there that collects them

Advertising & Trading Cards, those were great little pieces of artwork. I would like to see them come back but what company would spend that kind of money for advertising? It would bring back collecting in that area, for sure. I haven't seen any for a long time so I'm assuming they are all stuck in some album somewhere and haven't seen daylight in many years. What a shame that would be!