A 10/16/2011 UK News Article: Philately Gets You Nowhere

A sad perspective on the future of stamp collecting. While the article originates in the, the same can likely be said for any number of other countries, including the US:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...lectors.html

The couple of reader comments at the end of the article suggests a "so what" attitude about it ... but I guess that's typical of non-stamp collectors who just don't care.

Be sure to check out the list of "Stamp Facts" though at the end of the article. A few of them stumped me!

wt1,

Thanks for posting the URL. I had not seen this article.

Another similar article in today's UK news as well:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...eeds-newsxml

Although I agree that the number of stamp collectors is decreasing, I don't see it dying. This seems to be due to the "immediate satisfaction" mentality of the younger generations (don't get me started on that!) and the fact that people these days don't write as many letters or use the post office like they used to. When I asked my class how many of them write letters I got maybe 3 students out of 27 who raised their hands. That was because they have relatives in the military/police who can't use electronics when they go for basic training or at the military academy here.
I was quite distraught to learn that the IYS (International Youth Service) an organization which
matched teens/young adults as penfriends had gone under. It seems that email is more and more prevalent than actually putting pen to paper. It's a pity because I met a few nice people through them who I exchanged stamps with when I was younger!

I have no personal knowledge of this organization, but have you ever heard of the Letter Writers Alliance of Chicago? Here's a link to their web site, which by the way, contains a significant amount of US postal history:

http://16sparrows.typepad.com/lette...ersalliance/

That's a nice website. I liked the different covers.