Anitques Or Still Just The Hobby?

Hi All,
Maybe for some here this has already been decided, but I was thinking if the hobby of collecting stamps has gone from just collecting stamps as a hobby or if you now look at it as collecting antiques as a hobby?

With most of the stamps now self-stick, it puts all the stamps in a different category. Just a thought.

Donna

For me it certainly has become a hobby..I have bought stamps and ppl have give given me stamps. I LOVE IT! There are some who would say that I have become fanatical about it(in a good way). I am just waiting for some relative to win the lottery and share with me so I can expand my collection....Thnx for bringing up the topic, Donna.......Cliff

I look at it as collecting "postal history".

While there are some confirmed stamp collectors who will stop collecting modern issues either because of the introduction of self-adhesive postage stamps into the market, or unwilling to tackle the increasingly known varieties that have been issued within each series of stamps, or deplores self adhesive stamps as nothing more than labels, or objects to the increasing number of issues the post office puts out in an effort to profit from collector interests, the fact remains that it is all "postal history" and in my view I collect virtually anything that comes my way that could be considered as such.

In fact, upon reading various threads on SCF, you will see that some new (or even older) collectors have realized the value of looking at today's postmarks (yes, even the spray-on cancels), or labels, or meters, or personalized postage stamps, or postal etiquettes, or even publications that you can often pickup for free at your local post office. Perhaps some of this material is of limited or no cash value, but the fact remains that they all somehow relate to postal use today and in the future will be considered part of our postal history, so within that framework, it is all collectible.

In my opinion, the beauty of stamp collecting, or collecting postal history, etc., is that there are no rules. You can do it on a shoe-string budget or spend hundreds or thousands of dollars should you so choose. It's all up to you. The collection can be as simple or as complex as you desire it to be.

Hi to all

Stamp collecting is an addiction.
One hit and you can never really cure yourself. You may leave it in abeyance whilst you raise a family our have a mis-spent youth, but the addiction returns with a vengeance.
Love the addiction.
Horamakhet

I've never thought of stamps as antiques. They are alive for me, a part of history I can study and puzzle over and hold.

Of course if I had the bucks I would just buy an estate and castle and all the old stuff, but then I would want to study and puzzle over all that.

For me it's fun and satisfying to read about it and ponder it and be amazed and enthralled (addicted) by stamp collecting.

Hi Donna
I guess it depends what sort of stamps you collect. Since I tend to prefer the older models, I guess you could consider them antiques. It all depends on age doesn't it?
That's one of the things I like about stamp collecting, especially older pieces, is that stamps, and mail in general can be considered ephemera. Really they weren't supposed to last, they were really disposable. So if a little piece of paper can survive a hundred and fifty years (or what ever) I think that's pretty cool. It's defied the odds.
When I get a mint stamp dating from, say the 1920s, and it looks like it came straight from the post office, it's like it's gone through a time machine. It's shouldn't be here, but it is. Interesting question.

I guess it is all in how you look at it, but for me because of the self-stick stamps I am thinking more and more of the time as stamps being antiques. That can even be broken down as it was pointed out in the thread that many are concentrating on things like post marks, meters, ephemera, etc. I was getting frustrated because my collection is just so all over the place and the infinite possibilities of all the different ways that I could organize my ever growing headache was to pick the one thing that I liked about the stamps. It was the beauty of the stamps that were lithographs.

Even with antiques people will center on one thing, for example, carnival glass. Some will go for all the colors that was created for the art, others will go for the colors that were specially made or the few of a kind that are harder to find. Just a thought...lol

Donna