Have You Returned Back To Stamp Collecting?

Like most hon this topic, I started when I was about 10 yo or thereabouts and continued until I went off to university in the early 1980s. I sort of specialised in British colonial Africa even by that stage, but education, married life and working life got in the way and I didn't start again until about 4 years ago. This was mostly because I could afford again after an expensive divorce... :-)

I would sdefinitely ay that I am much more active in collecting than when I was younger.

I started collecting around 1965. I was pretty active until the mid 80's. Family and work put stamps on the back burner. I would pull out my collection from time to time and I never stopped accumulating stamps. I got sidetracked in the 80's and early 90's with Sportscards and Hot Wheels. By the late 90's I got more active in stamps and actually joined a couple clubs. I am still a member of those clubs amongst others. When I came back to stamps my interest was more focused on postal history and covers. In 1980 I had one cover that I had not removed the stamp from. It was a first trip HPO. I saved it because I did not understand what it was. I also had a shoebox of post cards and another with covers from mostly small towns in Minnesota. My entire collection including albums fit in a four drawer file cabinet. I know this because that is the year I got married and my wife often reminds me that when she married me, my entire collection fit in that cabinet. I now occupies the lower level of our home.

I collected stamps as a kid and took a 30+year break. What got me back into stamp collecting was buying a portion of a collection at an estate sale. The learning curve from going to a 10 year old collecter to a collector in your 40's is big. And the rules change lol. My biggest issue was dealing with dealers asking what I collected, when I really did not know. This forum helped me and getting directed to Stamp Albums.com help as well.

I collect a few countries some by default and some by choice. I like collecting as an adult, but I really miss being able to go by stamps at Woolworths...that just dated me.

I got into it just a few months ago. My grandmother gave me her and my grandfather's collection which is huge, and ever since, I've been hooked and organizing it every day!

I started at about twelve. In 1955, my dad gave me a very nice album, which I am still using, and his father's collection. I went at it hammer and tongs for a couple of years. Then my interests changed: electronics, ham radio. and, yes, girls. Many years later I took up model railroading, and had a lot of fun with that. Then, like several other people who have replied, I got sick. Cancer and a stroke I managed; diabetes I didn't. It is tough for me to walk, and stairs are frightening. Good by model railroad in basement. So I returned to stamps, which I am enjoying more that I had expected. I have learned a great deal, and when I started collecting German Reich, I started using my very rusty German again, so I thinking I am keeping dementia at bay.

Don

Yes. I have returned.
I started around 1961 when I was 9 years old. Most schoolboys (it was rarely girls) went thru a phase and most stopped after a few years. I just kept going. It was all cheap packet stuff from Woolworths. And I still have the stamps....25 France, 10 Iran, but it was mostly Bulgaria space, Czechoslovak football CTOs . In 1970 aged 18, I started to specialise in Ireland and stayed with it. Even as a young family man I could justify having a hobby on the grounds that I dont smoke or drink and it was reasonable.
In 1998-2000 it all went wrong. The Irish Post Office just issued too many stamps and I called a halt. I could no longer justify it.
The Internet was already making Stamps obsolete and it seemed appropriate that it was the end of a century.
I was about 20 stamps (mostly Seahorse overprints) from completion.
I came back to Stamp COllecting in 2012, an absence of 12 years.
The priority was to get up to date with twelve years of new issues (mint AND used).
I completed this project about a year ago, ahead of the five year schedule that I set myself.
So I am still about 20 stamps short of completion and I am more or less in the position I was in 2000. Somehow it doesnt matter that I am not complete or never will be but Iam much happier.
Stamp Collecting can be obsessive and I mitigate this by balancing with the fun aspect of cheap used stamps from around the world.
It brings back the FUN of being almost 9 years old again

I really enjoy reading these stories. My own is just like everybody else's. When I came back, I stayed with mint USA with Showgard mounts. After effectively finishing the 20th Century, I started looking for something else to collect. So I went to King George VI mint hinged. Using hinges this time like I did as a kid. In fact, I must have passed the 1,000 stamp mark (I'm up to Ceylon) as I just broke into my second package of Dennison's hinges. I know I never used a full pack as a kid so this was the first time!

Jack Kelley

I started collecting in 1973, when I was 7, and I never totally stopped, though my focus has shifted from time to time. I haven't mounted any stamps in my Canada, Germany, or worldwide albums in years, but I've been filling Vario pages with stamps reflecting topics of interest. I've been steadily, but not quickly, adding to my Esperanto (etc.) topical collection since I started it in 1996; it's now up to three green Vario G binders.

I did very little with my MNH U.S. collection after I stopped trying to get all the new issues in 2005. I continued to buy full panes of new commemoratives that were of topical interest, but that was about it. Then in March 2016 I was inspired to return to my U.S. collection and made an effort to fill the empty spaces in my album from the mid 1920s onward, to the extent that my budget would allow (I still have gaps at 3138 and C13-15, for example). Now I've slowed down on that collection again and haven't bought anything for it in the past four months.

I enjoyed reading these stories and only wish that we were sitting around a table hashing our mutual interest out in person rather than on line. You all seem like fine people, and a hobby, particularly with a disability that limits physical activity despite the mind being sharp, can be a life saver--

I fear that the baby boomer population, at least in the United States may be the last generation to provide these stories due to the relative disinterest in collecting as opposed to technology etc. --although the prognosis for the rest of the world I suspect may be better.

I was struck by the number of you mentioning either a parent or a grandparent who first exposed you to stamps whether they were a collector or not as well as the few of you, like me who also had an album inherited through either a grandparent or uncle serving as the initial seed to add to.

I have always felt that a personal collection, no matter of what, somehow defines the collector him/herself in a very personal and unique way

American Gen-X'er here (47 years old), and I know there are many others here on this board around my age and younger. My generation is the last one to come of age in the pre-internet era, however. You may be right about an eventual drop-off, but I think it'll last at least a generation past the boomers. a longer term problem is that the youngest generation is rarely exposed to stamps at all, much less stamp collectors.

Being as I live in the upper Midwest I return to it every winter when it's too cold to go outside. During spring, summer and early autumn I rarely touch anything stamp related other than an occasional run through the stamp community websites.

I collected from childhood in the late 70s thru college and grad school but then sold the collection in the early 2000s to fund a business I started. In the end the business didnt work out. When my father passed in 2009 I inherited the balance of his collection and dealer stock (he was a part time dealer in the St Lawrence Valley of NY) and now I am fully immersed in the hobby again.

An old thread which is always interesting. I quit stamps during the High School years but resumed it in my early twenties. Had fun in those days chasing around Montreal to the many stamp dealers and assembling a Canadian mint collection; met Sergio Sismondo there when he operated a stamp business in the old Laurentian Hotel. When the children started coming; had to give it up and sold most of my best stamps to pay bills. Picked it up again about fifteen or so years ago and have built a nice collection - New Zealand (which has always been my favourite); added Canada and Canadian Provinces; some British Commonwealth countries and France and French Colonial issues. While buying collections, have accumulated a lot of WW material which is part of my give-aways. Stamp collecting is a great hobby - takes your mind off many other issues and I think contributes to overall wellness. A lot of over-anxious Millenials and Gen-Xers and others could benefit from it.

NBstamper: could not agree with you more about the potential health benefits involved in collecting, particularly when done for enjoyment and intellectual interest and economics are removed from the equation. I have never measured it but I would bet my blood pressure is 30 or more points lower when sorting or putting a couple of random stamps in an album.

Your collecting interests paralleled mine after moving on to the world after US. Early British Commonwealth more than GB itself and French colonies have always been a favorite. But when looked at from 30,000 feet, except for a few countries, the entire world was putting out beautiful engraved stamps from about 1890-1930.

I started collecting as a teen & after 40+ years I never really quit (I always kept & soaked incoming stamps) though my interest level went up & down. I agree with NBstamper, collecting stamps is a great stress reliever. I've never specialized partially because I view collecting as a poor-man's way of traveling - you get to learn about customs and history of different countries by their stamp issues. And that's why I still collect - new issues bring new history that I never knew.