Charles Shreve Is Making Stamp Collecting Sexy Article

Thought I would share this article from Dallas Magazine.

https://www.dmagazine.com/publicati...ecting-sexy/

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

I hate these puff pieces. It's akin to when Warren Buffet gives investing advice.
"Stick with what you know. You can't be successful in any business—especially the hobby business—if you're not passionate about the product"


I could be a genius and I do love stamp inverts. I just can't afford one... Thrilling advice. I'm pretty sure if I had a 50million stamp budget, I can buy and flip _something_ for profit... without any passion.

Through my years, what I have learned, is that the clowns at the top, are no better than the clowns in the middle or bottom.

If that's sexy, they must have a low threshokd in Texas ...

No harm in the piece and Shreve's is a good story, building one of the best stamp auction houses in the world, Shreves Philatelic Galleries (and I still say Spink Shreves instead of just Spink).

I like it.

Its exposure for the hobby, and Charles is a pretty nice guy. I've always liked him. He's a good face for the hobby, in my opinion.

There are all kinds of marketing. This is clearly promoting the hobby through a high-end dealer and high-end stuff. When I was very young, I'd see ads for things way beyond my means. It gave me something to dream about, even if I'll likely never own any of it. Someone else may see this ad and not even realize that stamp collecting still exists. Maybe they will dream of getting an invert someday, and maybe someday they'll have the means to do so. If they don't, then maybe they'll just collect worldwide stamps instead like many on this board.

Gotta keep things going!

It is not really publicity for the "hobby" but its good publicity for the "business".

People wonder why collecting hobbies have gone the route they have.

If I worked for TSA, I'd have made him check his album as baggage on that plane or stow it under his seat or overhead, not drop it off in the cockpit. This elitist behavior is garbage, and I abhor touting of it.
As far as hitting 1b in sales, it's impressive. He specialized and dedicated his life work to this, and he "won"


My advice to making a small fortune in stamp collecting, is to start with a large fortune.
Oh, and kudos to those who find an invert in the kiloware.

This when he was about 12: "I'd go to shows where I could buy a stamp for $50 on one side of the room and immediately sell it on the other for $100."

Gee, just like all those 12 year olds with an easy $50 to start with, AND the knowledge to boot. Right.

I admire his focus and determination. He was working as an auction lot describer at age 14 after working at a stamp shop at age 12 to pay for his stamp purchases. A teenage boy who knows what he wants to do and works hard to achieve his dream is a great story. He saw opportunities along the way and took them.

Possibly, but ... accepting that conditions may have been different in the US, a teenaged schoolboy or schoolgirl in England in the late-'60s would have earned £1 for eight hours' work in a supermarket. $50 - around £20 then - would have been beyond the dreams if avarice. Unless you had wealthy parents, of course.

And wealthy parents, if indeed the case, would be no reason to begrudge him his success. We do not know all of the particulars however and can only make assumptions. The bottom line is that for an avid stamp person Charles has lived and is living the dream at least as far as philatelic endeavors go. Part of philatelic history and his biography is on the Smithsonian site. Cool!

Most likely he worked hard at getting what he wanted. Sounds as if he started with a small budget and kept focused. I'm sure being at the right place at the right time may have helped get him to where he is. To help you all to understand my opinion the following may help. My uncle saved his allowance and small change he earned in odd jobs from his early teens. He didn't buy stamps. he bought antiques a local auction. Antiques he bought for as little as a dollar he eventually sold at 100% and up profit. An example were civil war rifles he bought at $5-15 were sold for $50-200 after two decades or so. And these were the not his big value items. Well, you can't do that today in the antique market. He was at the right place at the right time.

He's of Boomer age, where so many kids had stamp collections. With that size population, it's no wonder that there are a fair number including Shreve who started wheeling and dealing at that age. Of course it's a puff piece, but would you rather see the kind retrospectives of "prodigies" like the coin world's fraudster and smuggler Bruce McNall and ice skating's Tonya Harding?

Writers/media gets things jumbled up again with stamps in that article. The big number for the 1c Pan-Am invert was for a block of 20, mentioned as a block with no size indicated and illustrated with a single. The Bible block is a block of 6 with no size indicated. "Why, I got a bunch of those Washington stamps in the sheet with the Franklin stamp and they're all color errors to boot!"

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Nice writeup, but we need to stay focused on what is really important.

Q/ What is the name of his publicist ?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Rogdcam

You need to stop him from choosing his own clothes before the next piece.