How Long Have You Been Collecting Stamps?

Started as a young child, collected through about age 16 or so, then put it away for years. Restarted approximately 15 years ago at age 34. I guess I returned sooner than most...

I am not concerned at all about the results of this non-scientific poll. To me, it suggests that this is a mature person's hobby, and I see nothing wrong with that. It attracts well-educated, curious people who are 45+ and have the patience, intelligence, wisdom, inquisitiveness and financial resources to pursue it. How refreshing to go to a show and socialize with people with the same level of shared experience. Stated another way, there are times when it's nice to be clear of the generation that's full of piss and vinegar. I am glad for the company of older people and I think there always will be plenty entering the hobby.

The best way to get young people into the hobby, to pursue it in youth or re-enter it later, is for all of us older ones to talk to them about what we are doing. Tell others when you are going to shows.

Show your acquisitions at work. Organize a Hobby Day at Work where interested employees bring in a small sample and do a brief show-and-tell over a brown bag lunch in the conference room. You may have 2 or 3 other collectors at work and you didn't know.

I agree with most of the comments about APS. To me the best innovation it could explore is holding more one-day courses on a regional basis. Other associations in which I am active have organized 1-day "road shows" where the same course is given on multiple different Saturdays in 5 or 6 major cities spread around the country. Working people can't go to two-day courses that occur during the work-week, or that are far away. APS can compete in the area of education.

Kids are the future of stamps..That's why at the stamp club, I push that theory.

I 'voted' but have to say the number of years I clicked off were split by a 30 year interruption. This latest stretch has only been 4.5 years. I'm a regenerated newbie!

Well, I'm a new collector, a member of the APS, and 28 years old. :) I'm kind of an old soul, though. But I got my friend re-interested, and she's 24. So there's hope.

CaffeinatedSquirrel, That is great that you are young! Have an interest in stamps and collecting and have your friend interested too. Something you both can do together. A shared hobby. You ,sooner than you think, will be a pillar in the community. The SCF Community that is. Even if for some reason you do put it aside for a while. Keep everything in tact so when you pick the hobby up later. You will have a good start. I have all my teenage collection just as I left it before picking the Hobby back up some 47 years later. Hopefully you won't lay it aside like I did. But you'll continue to pursue the Hobby.

I have been collecting stamps for over 40 years.

Always nice to see some younger collectors in these threads. We're out there, even if not always a large presence at shows. I'm 40 now but have collected for nearly 35 years. Started young and never put it down.

One thing that tends to get missed at stamp shows (especially larger ones) is that they are also social occasions. The APS now has a "young friends" social group that meets at the summer and winter APS-sponsored shows; it's a good chance to meet other younger (under 50) collectors.

I was just thinking. I think men are more likely to put stamp collecting or any other personal hobby aside than women because of. A Military commitment, college, Job and Family commitment and all the chores with maintaining a home that take up all of our spare time. Men just don't have time when young to devote to a quiet Hobby like Stamp Collecting. We tend to pick the Hobby back up after we retire and many of these other time consuming obligations are behind us. Not to imply women don't have obligations but they are different than men's .

You lookin' for trouble, TinMan? If I were you I'd start walkin' that last comment baaaaaacccccccccckkkkkkkkkkk. If, that is, you want to have any female friends left at all. Bearing babies, keeping house, pursuing a career all at once--the ladies have plenty to do at the same stage in life. Don't much matter whether they are feminist career-heads or maternally engaged wives and mothers,
they
have
plenty
to
do.

And woe to the man who claims otherwise.

It's the couch for you, tonight and for the foreseeable future, TinMan.

I know there are more men than women who collect stamps but I've wonder what is the ratio? 10 to 1? 20 to 1?

Of course, a few men and a few women (like CaffeinatedSquirrel) do keep collecting in their 20s and 30s. A few of the men have posted on this thread. But I'm guessing that collecting all the way through is more or less equal for men and women.

That many more men than women collect stamps is obviously true. I just question whether the trend to put it aside as young adults is any more common for men than for the (relatively fewer) women who collect.

I started at, about, 12 and I'm 56. I've never realy left stamp collecting, although in some periods of my live I have been more active than in others. Now, it's not a very active period, as I've started my own bussiness and I'm occupied in other duties.
But I still check daily e-bay and go most Sundays to our stamp market in Barcelona.

I thought I might stir up a hornets nest. Love you Ladies and yes I sure do know you have a full plate too. I was trying to figure out why men pause collecting when younger then tend to pick up the hobby back in their latter years. Thinking of my own situation. Any Thoughts? Ideas? Anybody??

I collected from 1975-1980 and then resumed in 2010 after rediscovering my 1978 album carefully packed away. In my case it was simply having a diversity of interests, several other hobbies, and multiple residential moves, as well as a business, two kids, an ex-wife, a girlfriend and a bartender depending on me. What is incredible is that between 1980 to 2010 I moved about 6 times and never lost, damaged or destroyed the album or its contents. I re-entered the hobby when my father passed away and I discovered he had an extensive mint sheet collection, having never told me about it. So, my current collection serves as a way to remember and honor what he started. I hope one of my kids will do the same.