Stamping In London......a Thing Of The Past ?

October 2014.

I recently returned from a gruelling work-infested trip to the UK and unlike many or most of my visits back to Old Blighty, philatelic side-trips were almost non-existent.
I did manage one 36-hour jaunt to London to visit friends and took a few hours to find some stamps and stamp accessories.
I was disappointed on both counts.
As I trudged along the Strand and surrounding streets, once the home of world philatelic stuff, I found myself outside Stanley Gibbons. Always a bit up-market, they at least had a good downstairs accessory department to stock up on sheets and just about anything else.
Not any more.
Downstairs was closed and turned into offices, most likely for their expensive stamp and auction business. Upstairs were mostly catalogues and top quality albums, neither of which were on my list. There was little else and so nothing to hang around for.
I left.
On the opposite side of the Strand was the Stamp Centre, always a useful place although overrun with Dr.Who toys and momorabilia. I entered and was greeted by........lots,lots more Dr.Who toys and memorabilia ! Then I asked the young man behind the counter [who doubtless knew nothing about stamps] if he had some Vario stock sheets and he said they didn't stock them any more and that I should buy them on ebay !! He REALLY said that. Shocked, I asked him if he was joking and he said quite calmly that he wasn't.
I left.
Two more shops not to visit on future trips to the UK capital city.
I then headed west for the short walk to St.Martins Lane to one of the last remaining 'real' stamp shops in London. There I was sure to get something of what I wanted or at the very least to look at some stamps.
No.
Not only was the shop gone, but the building had been completely renovated to make it look new and modern and housed some banking or other business facility. I gazed upon the scene with sadness. Was this it ? The end of the line for the average philatelist in London ?
It appeared so.
So what remained?
The Post Office on Trafalgar Square still had a philatelic counter which was quite refreshing. So while all the other 'windows' sported huge mile-long queues, this Bus was able to get his few bits from a Postal Teller twiddling his thumbs !

It is true, there are still a good number of Saturday and Sunday monthly or Bi-monthly fairs around London and one good monthly fair in the centre, but it seems like the Philatelic death knell has sounded for the ordinary visitor/collector to London.
And it was sad.

But there was one continuing bright spot on the horizon. The Charing Cross collectors fair on a saturday morning, from 7am, was still going strong and was very busy and I did pick up some nice Cinderellas. I met my Stamp buddy, Stampstudy for our usual browse and full English breakfast afterwards.

Some things never change.

Londonbus1

That is a sad story but with a happy ending Londonbus1. Any pics of the new shops or of the full English breakfast to whet our appetites?

and Vera Trinder, just round the corner from the SG shop, has closed and the business is now mail order only and based in Cornwall. London is a very different city from when I first moved up here. Gone are all the specialist shops of all sorts, replaced for the most part by endless rows of cafes. Does anybody else remember the tiny shop inSouth Kensington that sold only cardboard models? Or the shop I found one lunchtime near Old Street that sold nothing but funnels?

I presume you've already seen the Tapling Collection at the British Library? Consider attending a live auction, or visiting the RPSL. Because the RPSL's historic collection recently was accredited as a museum, it is required to permit visitors to see it. Unfortunately the exhibits are spread over several floors, some of which include private offices, so they guide you through the visit and it isn't as leisurely as you might hope, but it is a philatelic landmark and worth seeing.

Sadly you are right about the death-knell being sounded for old fashioned stamp collecting. When I lived in the UK my stamp dealer was (and is) the wrong side of 65 and his wife is, sadly, in poor health. When he closes, the nearest stamp shop will be over 150km away. The Internet has done for stamp shops in the way it has done for independent book shops. Is this sad picture the same in other countries?

Hi London bus - several years ago I do two things in GB - one was attend the "Embankment stamp and coin show" which turned out to be a boot sale thing in a dark and dingy underground parking garage - awful. The other was to visit a "big dealer" in Edinburgh - very long bus ride for me - but not to complain about that. I had emailed the owner two weeks before to say when I would be visiting and that I was interested in vintage Canadian covers - - when I got there no record of my having given notice - the boss was away - and I was unceremoniously shown to a dark corner and shown a half dozen boxes of recent Canadian covers - mostly FDCs. Extremely poor show.

Yes, but shows can provide an effective substitute. My experience is that there are still many retail dealers, they just use sales channels other than a high street shop. They maintain a private office, then go to shows periodically and sell on the internet through their own site or auction sites. In the US, the recent ASDA show in New York had over 50 dealers, and the Chicago area show will be the same. In the UK, aren't Autumn and Spring Stampex large, plus there is the 2015 national show in May that will celebrate 175 years of the Penny Black. Should be tons of dealers there. Yes, you can't stroll down the local high street and find a stamp shop anymore, but with planning you can do all your shopping in a couple of days at a good show--and be able to compare prices.

At the moment I live and work abroad and a visit to Blighty coincident with stamp shows simply isn't possible. You must admit there is no substitute for browsing in a stamp shop, is there? The ability to browse stock, chatting with the dealer and other customers, finding that hidden gem. Can't do that on The Interweb, no matter how glitzy the website!

Let's all face reality. The stamp market has moved to the web and to periodic stamp fairs. The only dealer I've visited in the last ten years was Ian Kimmerley in Ottawa and he has now closed his shop and gone online. But, if you are patient, you can find almost anything you want for your collection online. Even in my remote corner of the world, I can go to regular stamp shows in three nearby cities, browse to my heart's content and meet many fellow collectors. Be happy!! The stamp market has never been better. In a small country (area-wise) like the UK, you must be able to travel easily to dozens of stamp fairs.

I agree with all comments. I used to visit many stamp shops in London during my lunch hours in the 70s and 80s, but in truth rarely found anything that fitted into my overly-specialised collections.

Then came the internet and my collection is now brimming with hundreds of cinderella purchases relating to printers' dummy stamps that I would never have found in a shop, or even at a fair. I miss the stamp shops, for sure, but more for the excitement that I MIGHT find something. GLENN

That's too bad Londonbus but at least you ended up with something in the end. I been wanting to try to strt a stamp club in my area Clearfield, Pa. but like London I think it's a dead end but that won't stop[ me from trying. You're a good friend and I feel bad for everything that has happened to you on your trip but keep your chin up. as long asd there are stamps there will be stamp clubs....we hope anyway! Your true friend -Jeff

I guess we have no one to blame but ourselves. Obviously the 'local stamp shop' was/is unable to compete with online sellers. In my opinion this is because the internet has turned millions of collectors into 'dealers'.
We can sit in our living rooms or den with a minimum of investment and start selling stamps and covers. We do not have to maintain large, expensive inventories or pay extra for retail space. We do not have spend any money for advertising or promotions. Few of us have additional costs in insurance or for utilities. And very few of us have to pay employees.
And while we use to go to the local shop to get caught up on the latest news or ask a few questions; we now come to online resources like this forum to do the same. It is faster, consumes no gasoline, and is open 24/7.

I just do not see how a local shop could possibly compete with this for long periods of time. It is not like there was a large conspiracy that closed the local stamp store; it was a lack of business because we stopped shopping there.

The challenges posed by the web are exacerbated in London by sky-high property values, high rental costs and high business rates. But even small towns well outside London have lost their interesting bookshops etc. Interesting that Brussels retains, quite near Grand Place, a street with second-hand bookshops, stamp dealers, accessory shops etc. I found similar shops in Antwerp. Just a happy memory here, sadly.

Geoff

Perhaps there is no longer the same government interest in small businesses from the city as perhaps there once was; in the form of rebates, tax incentives, property taxes, atc.

Or people have to generally travel with greater expense there?


I myself am collecting more and more, so perhaps a few people or a lot are paying attention overly to market futures, comments of a negative nature about stamp collecting (what!?), ideas of stamps being a different investment opportunity than stamps once were, once able to be claimed as expenses on income tax, and the idea that they have to be, when all else fails, an investment opportunity only to be paid attention to by monied people?

Ridiculous, I say.


As an investment opportunity, holding and increasing value over time, stamps may be one of the best vehicles for such a thing.

The idea that a catalogue holds the true statement of an investment's worth or value does not actually meet with actual real market conditions at the usual times of sales, except for expensive stamps that are only viewed as investments or are as rare as meeting King Midas.

What does hold value and gives worth to anything is your own personal knowledge of sales success skills, practised over time. To be able to sell someone the idea that this stamp or that is worth something, anything, the money anyway that one has paid for it at least, one really must practise one's skills, and have some rudimentary knowledge of the market. How else succeed?

An investment can be as little as a dollar or pound up to millions of dollars.

Of couse, to succeed in the end, after enjoying the many benefits of stamp enjoyment, you must end up with the feeling that you have done your best with your skills practised as you could.

To just give away your investment is a crime almost. So, buy cheap, sell dear, hmm?

But I like the idea of helping people. To show them that stamps help them much more than as an investment in only cash, but in the person's own money or currency, so to speak.

The worth of the currency of the love of stamps as an appreciation of life, learning, art, reading, making a bit of money here and there, enjoying people, learning about people, the puzzles available to still be solved, explored and searched for throughout the stamp world is of great value.

Also when you collect something else, like cats at pets, dogs, cars, all kinds of life's pleasures, the extra added pleasure of having them shown on stamps, postmarks or envelopes, regular or personal now, is another satisfaction to be sought after.

Stamping in my part of the world (Midwestern US) is impossible without the internet. My local stamp closed more than 20 years ago. The last fair I attended was dominated by postcard dealers with only one stamp dealer in attendance. Forums like this one are an oasis in my philatelic desert.

And it's not like there are no stamp collectors in London. The dealers in this neck of the woods are not really active in the philatelic community. They do their thing and expect people to come to their door. In some ways this is still a reasonable successful strategy for them. I have never seen a brick and mortar stamp dealer at a stamp club meeting and scarce few show dealers either.