"If You've Lost Philatelists...your Days Are Numbered"

An interesting article on the dilemma facing the recently announced price increase for stamps in the UK and the increased number of new stamps being issued and how it will in the end affect stamp collectors:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...ewsfeed=true

I've been saying the same thing for a long time now. That's why I stopped collecting U.S. stamps post-1993. The U.S.P.S. is clearly trying to screw collectors, they don't need to release as many stamps per year as they do and I choose not to get raped by new issues and increasing rates any more. They lost my business a long time ago.

Yes you are right Celphus. India from 1947-1957 Issued 22 Issues 49 Stamps total
and in 2009 79 Issues and 109 stamps (commemorative).

Thanks wt1 for link.

tikithindi

Agreed. That was actually quite painful to read..real dry. lol

The large number of new issues from pretty much all issuing agencies argues strongly for limiting collections to the definitives. Sure the new issues are usually attractive and that collecting urge begins to overwhelm you, but resist. If the new issues stop selling, then the powers that be will reassess their issuing policies.

I think most collectors have already put a date up to, on what they collect.My thinking is that a few catalog publishing firms are going to announce a stop date like 1960 or 1970 and everything after that date will be on CD's or not even published anymore.A CLASSIC book for 1840-1940 is aviable and maybe a GOLDEN AGE of 1941-1969 edition will be issued every two years will be it ......just a guess

The prolific issuing of new stamps, definitive and commemorative here in Canada must be turning off senior collectors but more importantly turning off the novice/younger collector from diving in. An example is the Chinese Lunar New Year issues, once actually 12 issues was enough but now we are repeating all 12 issues.

I found the article 'over-the-top' if partially correct. As the publishing date was Today ,Sunday 15th Mr.Mitchell appears to have been extremely under-informed. Which is to say he knows squat about Stamp Collecting !
Had he been 'in the know' he will also informed readers of the very important announcement made well over two weeks ago that the number of issues in Great Britain are being reduced drastically from todays levels and starting with one cancelled issue for this year. Next year will see a sharp reduction in issues and [hopefully] a return to better designs and specifically not by some London Art Company as has been the norm of late.
Having said that in defence of Royal Mail [My God, I don't believe I said that ! ] I cannot believe the 30% and 40% price increases coming in on April 30th and I have to ask if they are having a re-think about the way the company is being run [Sorry Canada]. Like so many of the worlds postal services, money is being lost due to bad management and I feel this cutting down on new issues [are you reading this Mr.Mitchell...let's send him a link!] is just a way of keeping collectors quiet for just a bit longer in the hope they will run out and buy all the Olympic crap...and it really is dire. [If I were an Olympic collector, even an avid one, I would give up now]

Collectors/Philatelists will not be happy until we are back to the 6 issues a year stage, but sadly that will never happen. Royal Mail will go bust first !

Londonbus1

Major catch 22- If they reduce number of issues way back then the remaining issues will be done in 3-5x the production thus leaving collectors with stagnent isuues that never see any improvement in catalog values. I do think that it is overkill with the sheer numbers to even attempt to collect . Even just buying a quarterly or year pack with so many increases to actual rates is not economical. I bought the $10 blue whale and imperf coil pane of 100 that were apparently only 1100 sheets but other than that I've been out of the new stamp buying forray for years.