Will Stamp Collecting Survive?

hoosierboy -- I guess I assumed unique visits. Don?

Not to work our way back to Sinai, but:

KGV ?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Sinai? "Thou shalt not shill", I suppose?

I take "Floor Traders" point about ebb and flow of interest in Stamp Collecting over the last three of four generations. Very valid point.
But I see the graph as an arc of rise and decline and there will be no real recovery.
After WW2 there was more leisure time and more money around and a hobby is based on "Time Plus Money".
There are of course many more hobbies around now. But I think the average youthful stamp collector from the 1960s and the mature investor were exploited and those boom years will never come again.
I dont know if "Floor Trader" is right. I dont know if I am right.
But I think we both make valid points...is it about ups and downs? is it about an arc of rise and fall?

The Boy Scouts got their merit badges, which is what most of them were really collecting.

The vast majority of "youthful" exploitees went on to waste vast sums of money on other amusements ... must we make a list?

The SMS (Serial Marketing Suckers) got a delivery every month or two with some nice-looking "collectible" that confirmed their discerning good taste & timeless values.

And I've yet to meet a "mature investor" who has not made a bad bet. (Et tu, Jumia, et tu?)

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Will stamp collecting survive -----Yes ,it will .

What we are seeing this year and maybe the last few years is the collapse of the NEW ISSUE collector. Postal Services around the world are experiencing the canceling of accounts .

I am starting to see tons of recent issues from around the world show up at stamp auctions and they can't realise 5 cents per stamp.

Oops, sorry somehow I missed the new posts in this thread.

I was not clear in my post. The Stamp Smarter graph is unique visits 'per day' over a month. So if you visited the site 10 times in one day it is counted as 1, but if you visited once a day for a month it is counted as 30.
Don

Floortrader - when you say recent issues, what are you referring to specifically?

I think the bottoming out you are seeing is impacted by overall lack of demand for postage itself. Plus with stamps over 50c and so many printed, people don't want to plunk down $100s with a proven expectation for lack of appreciation.

In the modern era I think only errors and few minor listings are sought after. I have seen demand for errors improve moreso in the last few, than the previous 10.

That aside, I also think people understand collectibles a lot more, having run through everything from beanie babies to baseball cards and comic books. So there is more calculation and cynicism toward subscribing to "collector" marketed stuff (rightfully so)

I guess "survive" needs to have an end date? Ultimately it will not survive. The last generation of letter & card senders are slowing passing along. They have been replaced by email which is being replaced with instagram which will be replaced by ......... Everything gets replaced at some time. Stamps will be scattered all over but the active collecting will pass, eventually.

I was at an International Coin Fair on Saturday. Usually Coin Dealers are peripheral figures at "stamp" events. And in 1970s and 1980s I would have regarded coins as less mainstream than stamps.
While it is fair to say that the majority of collectors were middle aged or elderly, there was a sprinkling of young people. And my overall impression was that Coin Collecting is in a healTheir place than Stamp Collecting. There was even a "buzz" or a sense of energy rarely seen at purely stamp events.

Anecdotally based on the work I do with one of the online catalogs, new members registering accounts come in ata healthy rate, suggesting to me at least that there is new blood coming into the hobby, it is just not organized in the "traditional" way based on membership in societies and attendance at stamp shows. It is much more dispersed, and the internet is the new global stamp club, with internet marketplaces now having nearly replaced brick and mortar.

But from what I see, the hobby is quite healthy and I think will remain so as a hobby for the forseeable future.

"I am starting to see tons of recent issues from around the world show up at stamp auctions and they can't realise 5 cents per stamp."

Give us some examples we can look up

'
I think that the Preppers (eg Doomsday Preppers) are fueling an interest in precious metals that has nothing to do with 'hobby' or 'collecting'.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Anytime the world worries, interest in precious metals goes up (current worry = coronavirus.) This has been driving a lot of activity in coins and metals.

In terms of preppers, I assume that they would horde salt and bullets over gold. A nationwide disruption of the power grid or transportation would drive big needs for self protection and to be able to preserve food.
Don

I keep thinking of how one who had a lot of precious metals would buy gas and food. I do not think many gas stations would be ready to accept precious metals including storing it. Would the gas trucks come with an armored car?