The Changing Trend In Stamp Collecting

Has anyone tried going to a school to see if they would be inrterested in having a stamp display? I would suggest unattended, under plexiglass, colorful and diverse. Set up in the lunch room or even a classroom. It would cost a few bucks to create a suitable display and I wouldn't think it would have any "Expensive" stamps but it might garner the interest of a few young minds.

Art

51Studebaker

These are my thoughts exactly. It's time to end the elitist approach to philately. There is a vast amount of information locked in the journals of philatelic organizations and study groups. It is ironic that those who specialize are often less likely to want others to share their interests.

I love philately and especially postal history. One way to spread the word and reach a large audience is the internet. Hundreds of people drop into one of my blogs daily. I'm sure that many of them don't have any interest in philately but at least they are having a look. Some teachers have linked my site to assist their students in researching Canadian history.

http://postalhistorycorner.blogspot.ca/

Several of you have written about those who are not computer-knowledgeable. I bought my first home computer in 1981- thirty years ago. This isn't a new-fangled invention. I have no empathy for those who have failed to make an effort in the past thirty years to become computer literate. Unfortunately, some philatelic societies cater to these individuals and continue to spend vast sums on print publications.

This is an interesting discussion and makes me think of several replies. As a disclosure, I began collecting in spring, 1960 at age 10. I never stopped during high school or college, altho sometimes I think other pursuits did compete for attention. So, I've been at it now for 53 years.

#1: I agree with the initial premise that postal history is squeezing out actual stamp collecting. I've been to the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show the past several years; after not attending since 1989; and 2/3 of the exhibits are postal history. I think postal history has a place and I have a modest amount of covers in my overall collection. But I do collect stamps, not envelopes. The postal history articles that I read in the several philatelic magazines & journals that I get are interesting, but not mesmerizing.

#2 I agree that there is a need for outreach to kids. But a far more lucrative market; and one I think is largely untapped; is retiring baby boomers.

#3 Collectible collecting has not gone away. The popularity of the Antiques Roadshow series on public broadcasting is a good example of that. I watch it occasionally and have yet to see anyone get through the screening to ask about a stamp collection. #4 & final point for now is to make use of outgoing mail and use stamps. Don't pay everything on line. And use commemoratives, not the boring flag definitives. Yes, I pay some bills on line. But also send out several checks per month.

Climber Steve

Postal History exhibits outnumber traditional stamp exhibits these days. The Rocky Mountain Show is no exception:



Although I collect postal history, I find these exhibits to be difficult to enjoy. They are extremely specialized academic exercises. I no longer spend much time looking at exhibits for that reason. I don't mind reading an article about the same subject though. Stamp exhibiting has become a competition in which most collectors are ill equipped financially to participate. Themes become narrower and narrower and more and more tedious. Without them I suppose wealthy collectors would be less motivated to develop their collections.

I suspect that you may have enjoyed the 1964 World's Fair exhibit. It is colourful and interesting. It is an exhibit like that one which can motivate a collector to emulate that effort.

Stamp shows have declined in popularity in my area. There are no exhibits at most local shows and the same dealers sit at the same tables every year. Some clubs make it difficult for new dealers to have a chance at showing their wares. I don't understand why clubs do this.

As I have written earlier the hobby is changing whether the old guard approves or not.

I like to respond to some of the recent postings.------------------------ :A few years ago my oldest daughter was working at the small town library, was asked to maintain the front display case. She asked for help and I made a display of World War II stamps nothing special with a lot of cheap stamps including a lot of Hitler head stamps .That display stayed in that case for three months because so many people stopped by and even had out of town friends in to see it .Would you believe more people seen my display than any GOLD MEDAL exhibit at any Philatelic Exhibition.---------------------On the subject of being "charged for information" that's a thing of the past, now with the internet and this chat board a lot of information is at your finger tips, to give you my personal experience ,recently I went to the APS Library at Bellefonte Pa. and they had the greatest invention since the printing press. They had a machine which was free to use and it could scan pages from any of their library books right on to a thumbdrive which I purchased at the local store for a few dollars .I loaded 8 or 10 books on to these cheap thumb drives .Three days later I drove home with a whole reference library on EGYPTIAN stamps for less than $15.00 all in my pocket . I now reference them thru my computer . If any of you need reference books ,that's the way to go and this is all new !.

I don't think we are seeing the end of stamp collecting as an organized hobby. The internet is providing a new alternative interaction that brings in a lot of collectors who might not have any local stamp dealers or stamp clubs in their vicinty.

Another factor that I think is being overlooked is that outside of Western Europe and North America stamp collecting seems to be on a massive upswing as the economies of the -developing world- grow and a larger percent of the population have a disposable income with which to indulge things such as hobbies. We all know about the crazy China market, but China I think is just the most visible example of the phenomenon. One area I think will become more interesting is sub-Saharan Africa, where several countries are developing quite rapidly. In another 10 years I think we might see not only colonial African issues take off much the way colonial Asia did in the 1990s (like Malaya & States for ex) but the post-independent era as well, where topical demand has already pushed up prices on certain issues and for the non-wallpaper production quantities issues were often very very small.

And with the internet, we now have such a great ability to interconnect around the world in a way that did not exist even 20 years ago that has helped to I think rejuvenate the hobby. As others have said, the old paradigms of how the hobby was structured up to the early 1970s really don't hold any longer, a new model of interaction, whether it be for purchasing material or exchanging information regarding philatelic topics, is being created. The days of the stamp club might be almost over, but it is being replaced by a much larger online stamp club with a much more heterogenous membership than ever existed before. And that, I think, bodes well for the hobby.

I have collected stamps for almost 50 years. I have seen many trends. My kids think I am foolish to buy one more stamp or cover as they see their inheritence slipping away on a hobby that only old men enjoy and they are all dying off. I have taken breaks from stamps, but I always come back. I primarily see myself as a postal history collector these days. I do see a lot of collectors gravitating that way. The daily mail is losing importance in our lives. There are so many ways of communicating that are more efficient and less cumbersome. Stamps will not be here forever. I do think people will always be interested in history and collecting old stuff. When I was a kid you could start a collection for free. All you had to do was dig the old mail that came every day out of Dad's wastebasket. There was a time when getting mail was a big deal. These days it is mainly a nuisance to most people.
What keeps this hobby going for me is not the stamps or covers. It is the people and the friendships that collecting and being involved in several clubs and organizations has brought to my life. I can't forsee any trend taking the need or desire for that away. If you truly want this hobby to last you need to get involved. Join a club. Take a non collecting friend to an auction. Share your stories. Do something besides worrying about the future, embrace it.

I just collect for fun. It's relaxing and pleasurable for me. I love history and my hometown so, I collect classic U.S. material and classic covers that focus on my hometown. It's both wonderful and fascinating history, to me anyway. I think that if I was thinking of my collection as any type of investment that it would be a very disappointing moment if/when I ever decided to sell it. Both the history and the enjoyment of it all is both my investment AND my return! I don't pretend to understand all the technicalities of the hobby, but I do love to learn about stamp and postal history however. I think it would almost be financial suicide to invest in stamps, (at least for me and my budget) but it's looking like that may be the case for about anyone and on most any budget nowadays! I hate to see the "whats it worth" posts, but lately I have been seeing those as a possible way to maybe loosely educate and introduce the hobby to the poster. If it takes great!- if not then- oh well. I at least tried. Best wishes to any stamp investors, I really do wish you well but would only suggest not holding your breath too very long.

lorddenning wrote: "........an extremely specialized academic exercise......" I'll agree that I found the exhibits at this year's Rocky Mountain Stamp Show to be rather boring. But I've also seen Antarctic exhibits, and some others, since I started attending again, to be very interesting.

Two years ago, I think (without digging out the show program), there was a mesmerizing exhibit on the life of Paul Von Lettow-Gorbeck. Few have heard of him, but the communist guerillas of the 20th century patterned their campaigns in large part from his campaign in World War I in what was then German East Africa, now Tanzania. On Armistice Day in 1918, his was the only German colonial army still in the field. I won't say more, those interested can Google him. But as a person who has traveled in Tanzania eight times, I find the history of the area to be fascinating. And the exhibit equally so.

While I belong to the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library, I don't do stamp clubs.

Artlaunier from my experience if we wish to see our passion for collecting continue and grow in this age of virtually instant communication that is precisely what we should be doing.

Having returned to this hobby quite recently after a good many years of travelling around the world and just purchasing stamps that I liked from the countries I visited or worked in and having never attended an exhibition or club, due to the elitist attitude of some of the 'serious' collectors I know; I now find myself in the privileged position as a Chair of Governors at a local primary school (pupils aged between 5 and 11 years old).

This position allows me to go into the school and visit the childrens' classes and interact in their lessons. Doing this has enabled me to use stamps from my meagre collection (7 albums and 27 stockbooks) to aid their learning in areas of geography, history and mathematics while kindling a very keen interest in the stamps themselves, so much so that I have put together a small collection of about 200 stamps which the child that makes the most progress (not the most intelligent) will 'win' as a reward for their achievement over the year.

I also have a termly(semester) prize of a packet of 30 stamps for the highest achiever that particular term. This has generated so much interest by the pupils in collecting that their teacher is now asking me to set up a 'school stamp club'.

This , in my humble opinion and I say humble because I still collect for the beauty and craftsmanship of the design or the history behind the stamp and not for the value it now holds, is the way to ensure the hobby that I love continues to thrive well into the future and should we continue to make this hobby even more specialised and elitist then it to will go the same way as the Dodo and dinosaurs.

I apologise if this seems to be somewhat of a rant but as you have probably worked out I'm passionate about this hobby of mine and yours.

As a recent returnee to stamp collecting, this is my experience after 16 odd years away from the hobby.

So I used to collect in school but stopped when I was around 15-16 thanks to the other distractions. I am 32 now and returned about 1 year ago.

As a kid in Bangalore, India I remember how difficult it used to be for me to acquire stamps. The only ones I got were from older collectors who were nice enough to give me theirs. I remember always thinking to myself, how in the world am I going to build up a decent collection? Where will I get these stamps from?

Anyway, 16 years later, I'm watching a show on TV about antiques and suddenly my mind moves to stamps. So I just go on google and type in old stamps and I get a gazillion links. I also get links for stamp collecting forums. I click on the forum and then see the great communities that the hobby has formed and these folks are having fun and all and have amazing stamp collections!!

I then remembered my childhood stamp collection (which my dad thankfully preserved for me all these years)...and at that moment I decided to start again.

This time however, I had a job to pay for stamps and accessories and more than that I had the stamps coming home to my door step ( ebay). I have never been to a stamp club, stamp show or anything like. At the most, the only conversation I have had with other collectors happened in my childhood. However, thanks to these amazing forums I can still proceed to collect without worrying about any social impacts.

None of my friends collect, in fact some of them try and poke fun, which makes me hurl them with abuses (lol).

Like others pointed out, the primary reason why youngsters cannot be asked to be bothered is because there are toooooo many other distractions. Partying, Hanging out, A variety of sports, Work, Gadgets...etc.

In my humble opinion, I feel the hobby will appeal to people like me, that is, people who collected as kids but then disconnected for whatever reason. However, at a later stage they just stumbled upon it once again and started once more. Philately has also been effected by the new movement in the world: All money, no class....

The fewer the better, more stamps for me :D ...(I kid , I kid)...

Sorry for the long and somewhat irrelevant post.

I think we can agree to disagree and be polite and respectful at the same time, what say?

smauggie

My initial comment was quite harsh. Thank you for pointing this out. No need for that sort of posting.

But to be fair you should have indicated that I was answering this question:

"Can I be right in saying that postal history collectors bleed off collectors from stamp collecting ."

My answer should have stopped at "normal size" no.

can not a stamp collector not also be a postal history collector? I consider myself to be both.

I was and still am a stamp collector. From nearly the very beginning nearly 30 years ago, I also collected covers, many times removing the stamp from the cover. So, I was also collecting postal history though I don't remember calling it that. As my stamp collection grew, so did the cost and its now nearly to the point where I can't afford to buy another stamp for the collection. But, I can still afford postal history.

Postal history affords a collector the opportunity to diverse his/her collection while not costing the rent check. In my Postal History collection, I have covers with enclosures, from "The War of Northern Aggression". A couple discussing Lincoln assassination the day after the deed. Even in the south it was considered, by some, to be a tragedy. I have airmail covers from the teens and Zeppelin covers from the thirties. Then there is my collection of 1851-1857 One Cent Franklins.

It's my opinion that one can be and often is, a natural progression with the other. They are not mutually exclusive. Now, the trend may be putting more emphasis on Postal History but like the word implies, it's just a trend.

Art