Youthful Collector..well At Least I Made The Attempt !

a fellow I see at the "Y" knows I collect stamps and told me his Grand daughter was interested in stamps so I gave him an envelope of stamps for her with my name and address and e mail ! So about 2 months passed and today he brought me back my stamps...he said she was no longer doing stamps.she was playing games on the computer !

I know how it is. I have three young ones and do not push it but am hoping. They show interest but it comes and goes so far.

And so are the days of our lives. I'd expect if 100 pcks were handed out the catch ratio would be 2-5% for a short period at least. All we can do is try and hope that they make a zombie game with the postmaster being the hero.

I tried to get both my son and daughter interested in stamps when they were pre-teen.
Got them each a nice Lighthouse stock book, tongs and stamps.
The boy liked sets like the Machins and other definitives, the girl
was more into colour and "pretty" things.
She also like to soak stamps and many times would ask " Daddy when can we wash stamps ?"

Oh those were the Good Days. But gradually with time their interests
changed as I more or less knew they would.
But I tried and we had some fun times together with stamps, my son
even went to one of the Stampex Ehibitions (Toronto) with me in the late Eighties.

Who knows maybe they will return to stamp collecting in the future.
They still have their albums.

same here my daughter & I like to soak snd press stamps but shes still maybe a bit too young yet. she does love the pretty colors so her & I work on the Washington/Franklin's together! she thinks the watermark detector is cool too.

We have been visiting friends in Ottawa and going to Orapex for the last 7 years...my friend mans the youth booth one day of the show and you see A LOT more kids at Orapex than at shows in the USA where they are as rare as hens teeth...the youth booth has large bins of stamps and the kids can take as much as they want...sometimes an old geezer will come along and try to rummage through the stamps but they are told its for the kids so hands off !!

It has always been a great frustration/disappointment to me that I was never able to interest my kids or other young relatives in stamp collecting. For that matter nobody in my or my wife's family collects anything that I know of. This is the reason that I truly enjoy this forum, being able to talk with other collectors of my interest in stamp collecting.

regards to everyone, yakboomer.

My godchild collect stamps for sometime when she was younger. As my sister and me collect stamps when we where teenager we introduce my niece to it. Few years after she gave me her worldwide album and all her loose stamps saying she had no interest in it anymore. It was the same with me at her age I quit collecting and eventually sold what can bring me money. I remember selling stamps to partly pay for a trip to NY City. For many reasons many of us quit collecting when they were young adult. It took me about 25 years to come back to it.

My kids have politely tried to show interest, but it did not take hold. Well, at least they tried. When I started collecting in the 60's we did not have as many distractions or choices as today's youth does. I also lost interest when I was a young man starting a family. I got back into it when the kids became more independent. I don't have any at home any more and my wife tolerates the hobby. It has become a much more social activity for me these days. When I was a kid it was a solitary thing. These days I have several clubs I am in. I go to many shows and even help with a couple of them and then of course there is things like this forum.
The great irony for me is as a young collector it was all about value for me. Getting the new price guides and seeing what went up was a thrill. By today's standards my boyhood collection has little dollar value. Now as an adult collector my collection is actually worth of fair amount of money, but that does not mean as much. The history and the learning and sharing mean so much more now than a catalog value.
I think that is part of the problem with youth and collecting today. They want instant gratification. They don't want to wait for anything to be of value. My kids have never been poor and don't understand the concept of having to save for something or wait for it. They are not interested in history and they have millions of friends that they have never met on their facebook page. My hope is that as they age they will get interested in history or something to bring them around, but the future for collecting is bleak.

Many of these stories are very typical.

Speaking for myself, I became interested in stamp collecting at an early age. Like many others, I sold off a big piece of it when my interests led to other things. Fast forward to the present day when I'm older and no longer have much interest in activities that took my attention away from stamps, I find it an enjoyable hobby, both relaxing, fun and, to some degree, I still get a thrill out of finding an occasional oddity or checking the latest catalog for what stamps I have that have increased in value.

I have never been -- nor will I probably ever be -- a collector of truly valuable stamps. I am more than satisfied with the common ones. Although common stamps may never appreciate in value -- value is a relative thing: I'm more than happy with the "value" I receive in just making it my hobby.

Frankly, I still get a bit frustrated with the fact that unless I'm communicating with fellow collectors, most casual friends just want to know "What's your most valuable stamp?" and "Why don't you sell it and use the money for something else?" I guess they just don't appreciate stamp collecting the same way I do.

I just gave my nephew a packet of stamps - he seemed interested. He loves geography so maybe stamp collecting will stick?

I sort of had to explain what stamps were. He liked the way they looked, but didn't immediately get the overall concept. The kid has an ipad, an iphone and windows laptop, but has never sent an actual letter to anyone.

How did I get so old?

wt1,
You are preachin' to the choir. I am a bit suprised that you don't collect what you call truly valuable stamps. I have found in a very short time that when I am stumped on something you will likely be the first one with the answer. As someone that has always collected used common stamps I am often much more interested in the cancel or the journey/history that the stamp or cover has. I do not have many stamps that catalog over $1,000.00 and likely never will. I have a collecting friend that once spent a lot of money for a Pan Am invert. He hung onto it for 10 years. He sold it at a profit and told me he would have made more money if he had invested the sum in a CD at the time.

Sounds familiar. I got my youngest daughter started collecting, and really thought she would stick with it. She enjoyed everything from soaking, looking up numbers in catalogs, even starting her own topical collection.

Then on that fateful day of Dec. 25, all was lost. The iPod fell into her hands, and since then nothing else really matters. I really thought I had her hooked. I'm still trying to drag her away from that thing. I think my main problem is that I don't have the quantity of stamps that most of you here have. Maybe I'll purchase from a kiloware supplier and tell her the box is all hers.

I'm not the richest guy in the world, so things just have to progress when they can. Here's hoping I can conform her again.

I have a 12 year old cousin back home (India) who is really interested in stamp collecting. But then he does not have a whole lot of friends who collect; so doesn't get to swap much. I have given him a US Liberty Album, a Kabe stockbook, tongs, hinges and box full of stamps.

That lot got this siblings infected as well and now 3 of them have a standing order with the local PO for new issues and I write to them often so they have used US issues well.

Hopefully with the youth. We are planting seeds for the distant future. Who knows? How many of us now started when we was young. Life got in the way and then some 30 or forty years later. We are back to collecting. This scene is present in probably 1/3 the collectors here in the SCF.

It seems one of the things that does help to transmit the hobby of stamp collecting from the older generation to the younger generations while simple on the face of it is actually kind of rare in modern society - spending time with your kids and grandkids. The more time and attention that one gives the younger generation the more likely those ideals, values, beliefs and habits will be handed down. It is harder in modern society, especially American society since the younger generations are at a distance most likely from their grandparents. Modern technological distractions do distract the young and people love using video games and I-doodads of the moment as an excuse, but an adult should have more control over such devices and make more time with their kids. Kids do crave attention.