Recommendations Of Stamp Auctions - For Smaller Budgets

It seems like constant attrition in the stamp world and no real backfilling. Experts, dealers, auctioneers, every month there is more of the same news.

Rasdale was a real gem IMO. The best large lots by multiples I ever purchased came from them. Nothing was over described. They didn't engage in puffery. They helped me out when Regency screwed me over with a consignment. Pretty sad news.

It is a shame Rasdale is closing, would of like some kind of "good-bye event " sort of a get together .Maybe three nights out for food and drinks . Like we use to have at Gregg Manning in New Jersey .
A night out for Chicago style hot dogs , then a meet up for a Chicago beef sandwhich ,then the night out before the stamp auction for a Chicago deep dish pizza .
Get to meet up outside the auction floor and meet who was stealing all MY good lots from me .Sometimes you want to know .who beat you and what was the reason

Is any of this really surprising?

The hobby has been indifferent at best—and actively hostile at worst—to change, modernization, and younger collectors for decades. Then everyone acts shocked when there aren't enough people coming up behind the dealers, experts, and auctioneers who are retiring.

Look at numerical grading. Sports cards, TCGs, comics, etc. embraced standardized grading and turned condition into something accessible, understandable, and marketable to a massive new audience. Stamps largely decided it wasn't necessary or wasn't worth the trouble. That's a missed opportunity.

Then look at the infrastructure. Platforms like SAN feel antiquated and unnecessarily difficult to navigate. Shows are frequently held in bleak, out-of-the-way locations that aren't exactly going to make a 25-year-old think, "This looks like a fun way to spend my Saturday." The hobby still seems to assume that the next generation will discover it through the same channels and in the same way that previous generations did.

And what exactly is the pitch to a young person today? Video games, Pokémon cards, comics, sneakers, etc. have enormous online communities, social-media ecosystems, influencers, spectacular auction results, and the possibility of making serious money. There is a whole culture surrounding those hobbies.

What does stamp collecting offer by comparison? In many cases, little financial upside, almost no social-media visibility, very little mainstream cultural cachet, and an infrastructure that can feel designed specifically for the people who were already collecting 40 or 50 years ago.

At some point we have to stop treating the disappearance of dealers, experts, collectors, and auctioneers as an unavoidable fact of aging and ask whether the hobby itself helped create the conditions for it.

You can't spend decades resisting change and then blame younger generations for not showing up.

The hobby has largely created this problem for itself.