USPS Says More Than 5 Million In The US Collect Stamps

I'm still skeptical of the 5 million figure, but if this is to be believed, it is on the low side:


No sources are cited for any of these numbers, but it is hard to believe they were all just made up.

Basil

I collected for many years without a proper catalogue myself.
I just wanted all the different stamps and started low priced and worked my way up, sorting by country and size, and also sets if I had them of course. Sets are neat. I had 8000 stamps in albums at the time, years ago.

As did I. I also had a period of about 10 years or so where I was collecting rather seriously, but subscribed to no publications and belonged to no groups.

I think it becomes very difficult to find the line between someone who has some stamps and such he or she is hanging on to versus someone who is a collector. At what point do those "stamps in the drawer" become a collection?

"Anybody who ever set aside a stamp and is still breathing" is a nice number of you are trying to justify your own (USPS) outreach program, but it is not the sort of number that supports analysis or planning. It does not tell Linn's how many subscribers to aim for, it does not tell a vulture capitalist how much to pay to buy Amos/Scott, it does not tell a hedge fund manager how to value that segment of Sotheby's business, etc.

If we set some (albeit debatable) minimum levels for hobbyist-that-matters-to-the-hobby - Artful's 12-month-purchase limit, for example, or attendance at a show, or purchase of an album/catalog - I think we end-up with numbers vastly lower than any of us would like to hear.

But that's where we are. The number of unique purchasers of USPS 'philatelic' products, such as those [comment restrained] $65 yearbooks, would tell us more about where we are going. FOIA, anyone?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Hi,
Of course I don't know the right answer here, but I do have an opinion.....
There are stamp collectors, and then there are stamp collectors. Said another way, there are folks that will hold on to that Elvis or Hank Williams stamp if it comes their way, and there are collectors that have several albums and thousands of dollars invested in their collection. The question is, does the casual keeper of a stamp here and there qualify for the title "stamp collector"? I don't know....

I suspect there are multi millions of folks out there that have an envelope of "keepable" stamps stashed away. On the other hand, I would imagine there are perhaps several hundred thousand of folks (USA we are talking) that are active and/or semi active in the hobby.

Sadly, I suspect the number of serious collectors has wound down a lot since the mid 20th century, and that is a tragedy.

I think that the USPS is playing loose with the definition of collector. I am sure that there are many people who have started collections at some point in their lives. How many of us as kids stuffed stamps into an album as kids and later in life come back to a more serious endeavor of stamp collecting.

I suspect that most collectors have never gone to a show; either they are too far away or they feel intimidated. And how many use the Black Book of Stamp Collecting or the USPS book or have found the 1847USA site and use that instead of Scott? No way to know. There will always be a large invisible group of what might be called "more casual collectors" out there, and the PC has made this much more possible than ever before.

The one area of collecting that is not being replaced fast enough are collectors who have legitimate serious knowledge of some collecting area. The experts, if you will. Those people are passing on faster than they can be replaced; that is the real danger to the hobby.

While it is very true that no one can accurately estimate the number of collectors in the US, at least I found a source that substantiates the USPS's claim of 5 million collectors. It seems it was documented in Linn's Stamp News at one point and is currently carried on the APS website under the heading "Who Collects Stamps" (although undated) at this link:

http://stamps.org/A-Hobby-for-Everyone

Although we can argue whether or not the number is accurate today and what source was used to come up with that estimate, the "final answer" will never really be known.

I think the question is "who is relevant to the future of the hobby"?

The continuing (year after year) engaged (buying memberships, albums, catalogs, magazines, show tickets and, oh yeah, stamps) collector is the core of the hobby.

We all have a sense that the core is shrinking, but then & now statistics about the individual elements above (memberships, albums, catalogs, magazines, show tickets, stamps) ought to be the sort of data that can be collected, especially by a neutral party.

(For example, pledging confidentiality, I once got a coupla oil companies to give me specific data about the capacity & utilization of their individual storage tanks at a seaport; I was then able to aggregate that data, and speak in a factual way about what might happen if there was a, uh, mishap at a nearby US Navy ammo wharf.)

We can also develop measures of hobby health by comparing, say, ASDA National Stamp Show booth fees & monthly magazine advertising rates with the general rate of inflation.

There's a Masters Degree thesis waiting to happen.

Let's have a vigorous discussion about who we would volunteer to fund the scholarship.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

To be fair to us, the passing of a master collector is a little more obvious than the rising expertise of others.

In one case, you get a nice, sharp, defined moment in time: and, an obituary, to boot.

In the other case, you might get some good journal articles over a coupla decades, but there is no PhD or graduation ceremony or trio of wise men that announces the moment at which a new expert has arisen.

Therefor, it always *looks* like we are losing more experts than we are gaining.

That does not make it true.

Further, we are more able than ever to stand on each others' shoulders. For example, back when I was first overseas, phone calls were U$D 3.50 for the first *minute*, and U$D 2.50 for each minute thereafter. Today, I can call anyone, anywhere, to ask any question about anything - even goofy canal confusions - without even remembering that the call costs money ... if it even does.

In such an environment, we might not *need* as many experts to sustain the hobby.

(Think about how many nuclear physicists & technicians it took to build the first atomic bomb, versus how many we need today to maintain the stockpile of thousands.)

Just as the polio vaccine stays invented, even if there are no new polio experts coming along, definitive work on The Postal History of Tahiti (excellent lecture!) may not need to be repeated in every generation.

A little reward for reading this far: You can see videos of the lectures, and download PDFs of the slides, for the last four years of the regular meetings of the Collector's Club of New York at:

http://www.collectorsclub.org/Meeti...Events.shtml

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

If you look carefully, you might see me at one or two of those Collectors Club meetings, although I don't go too often. On the other hand, I have been going to the Collectors Club for revenue stamp meetings for 44 years now, as well as Youth Stamp Club meetings and other events.
And I know about what it takes to become knowledgeable in various philatelic areas, and what constitutes "graduation" to a professional level. And it can't be learned by watching a few videos and reading a few books, valuable as those tools are. I also have been fortunate in knowing a modest number of experts, and I assure you they are not being replaced nearly as fast as they are leaving.

"The experts, if you will. Those people are passing on faster than they can be replaced; that is the real danger to the hobby."

And that is one of the issues with ebay. You've got many non-expert collectors selling to collectors - the blind leading the blind. And even when a collector does buy from a dealer on ebay that happens to be an expert, how much interaction do they have with the seller. Virtually none in most case I would bet. Certainly far less than you would get at a show and I would argue that it is still less than you would have gotten in the past if you phoned in an order or even mailed in an order. On ebay you just bid and pay, and move on.

Re: shows - the nearest one to me is 2 hours away and I went once about a dozen years ago. The only real reason for me to go is too see stamps in person before buying, but I can't imagine finding a stamp I need at a show that I couldn't find online in seconds or minutes without having to get off my couch, much less drive 2 hours. I still might go again someday just because it is neat to be able to shop for so many stamps in person. It would be nice once in awhile to look through dealer books rather than scrolling through search results.

You can also get the chance to see exhibits at shows; to see great rarities and more common stamps alike in ways that can be learned from. And looking at stamps is the only way to really learn about them. Reading books can tell you what to look for, but only seeing the stamps in person can show you what they really look like.