Philately Dies??

Money. To date, generally speaking, most videos produced by any organization about stamps, collecting or philately have had horrendous production values. To be effective, such videos need to be professionally made. By analogy, take a look what Kalmbach Publishing Co., a for profit publisher, has done in the model railroading space. Their Model Railroader Video Plus, mrv.trains.com, has been a huge success but obviously is costly. They have about 3 FTE's dedicated to it, private pay wall secured IT infrastructure, and pro video equipment. This would be an investment of roughly $600K in the first year once salary, benefits and capital costs are factored, and probably $300K ongoing per year. You need thousands of subscribers and excellent content to sustain that. It can be done, but it's a huge commitment. Frankly Amos Publishing and others are late to this game ...

I'm with ikey/pikey on this issue. I think there is a need to focus on all age groups; anyone who might have an interest in philately.

CJ Palermo had an interesting thought about looking for people "at or near retirement age who have leisure time, interest in more sedentary or social hobbies........." Doesn't quite fit me. I turn 66 years young in two months. Week ago today, I led a group up one of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks, part of which was a careful snow climb. On Sunday, 6-28, I spent a couple hours working on stamps.

I guess I'm one who still wants to do it all. Oh, I've collected continuously now for 55 years with no breaks; have been on top of a Colorado "14er" 203 times; have been on top of Kilimanjaro 4 times (last time in 2009); and look for philatelic materials whenever and wherever I travel.

essayk: I volunteered Bill Weiss for a video on the pitfalls of buying on ebay, but have heard nary a word

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Ikey;

This is the first I'm aware of your proposal, if serious, but CJP is right, to be most effective, helpful YouTube films must be professionally produced. Have you checked out those made by Jerry Birdsall of Northland Stamps? Some very interesting lessons - but is he the right person to present the material? I doubt I would be either. I can teach OK, can speak to that kind of an audience (in a classroom) but I doubt my onscreen presence would inpire the masses!

Actually, APS already does produce some coverage of some classes, and there has been some discussion to make videos of the Summer Seminar main courses and sell them at a fraction of the real cost of attending in Bellefonte ($550. for non-APS members and $450. for members), which is really a bargain considering what you get aside from the actual course (these can be accessed on the APS website if anyone is interested) but for those folks who can not for some reason attend that exact week, which I think is a very interesting idea, yet probably won't go anywhere soon, probably because of funding issues (just my guess).

But thanks for the thought!

ClimberSteve, congratulations on all you do. You are quite right that the current generation and next generation of retirees will be far more active and health conscious than those of the past. I probably should have phrased my post to say that the target should be people who want at least one sit-down hobby, rather than having all their activities sedentary. I am 50 and also quite active but value my stamp time for its recharge potential, as well as the excitement of the hunt and the close ... like at live auctions.

In dissertation writing they like to say that "Done is better than great."

Why hold out for professionals you can't afford, when knowledgeable volunteers could do the job?

Money isn't the stopper unless you want it to be. I'm sure you've heard of public access. Check out the online video being done by high schools with established video production classes. Coordinating for community service could get something done, if the right group of volunteers could be brought together. That is the hard part. I'm a certified Public Access producer for Comcast and know how to get a product online. It doesn't take a boatload of money to get something up that is eminently viewable with good audio. It takes dedicated volunteers. But that, I am finding, is the big stopper.

I read through most of the thread and enjoyed the views and opinions. I would say that the hobby is obviously supply and demand. Looks to be more sellers than buyers. The catalog values in many/most cases are much higher than actual values that I see paid for (EBAY, etc). In some ways it may be better for the newbie to collect the used stamps for a few cents apiece in bulk or on ebay and get the same enjoyment as having the history, beauty, art, and fun of collecting. For those spending larger amounts of money on the same stamps that may be unused, rare, mint, etc., it looks to be a losing investment in most cases these days. It costs much more for that same enjoyment of fun, history, art, and beauty of the stamps. It actually makes sense to avoid spending a lot of money if you want to collect for the enjoyment only. Perhaps those who are thinking of collecting for profit may want to look elsewhere for a hobby that the inventory appreciates in value. Of course I'm just looking at it from an amateur's viewpoint and not taking into account any "lucky find". When my father (89) gave his collection to my children he thought it could help their education fund if they did not have interest in the hobby. He had put money and time into it and thought it was worth something (me too!). He recently inquired what was happening with his gift. I said that I did buy the 2015 Scott catalog but it looked like something we would hold longer. If the catalog values were even close there could be some appreciable value. I now put a bit of time reading about and enjoying the Philatelic community information available. Perhaps in a decade or two the market may tighten up a bit and my children would get interested in the hobby or can sell if the values are increased. Just a few of my thoughts that came to mind when RAFA made the comment and the community responds.

One thing overlooked is the current crop of baby boomers who in many cases have not retired. This an age where more people over seventy are working than ever before. While I only work part time due to the stroke I have no plans of ever retiring until I pass away. This fact somehow has to be factored into the equation.

The other thing that also needs to be factored in is ebay and the way business is done. I don't know the percentage but I'm sure there are many stores where the owners are stamp dealers who are supporting their hobby by selling unwanted material at 5-10% of Scott.

I really believe that it will never return to the way it once was.

Isn't it possible that the baby boomer bulge and the way stamps were pitched to them gave us a false sense of hobby importance for a while? Back in the 30s stamp wholesalers sold promo programs to candy companies and other merchandisers with giveaway albums and a whole ad program to support the use of said albums. That approach had some success but really took off when the boomers came along. But how good was the bottom line in all that during the Great Depression itself?

Here is a stat I ran across in looking at some journals from the decade 1915-1925: An ad by Eugene Klein broadcast the fact that average realizations for lots in his auctions came in at 33-37 % of catalog value. This was in the days before the US Specialized even existed.

Say what you like about entertainment preferences and alternatives, but perhaps we are just heading back to where things would have been if there had never been a baby boom. Think about it.

One can see why Prof Aumann won his Nobel Prize for applying game theory to economics.

Imagine a collectibles industry in which the catalog publishers show higher valuations each year.

Now imagine a collectibles industry in which the catalog publishers show lower valuations each year.

Q/ Is it hard to imagine how we got where we are?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

The way I see it my enjoyment of collecting, stamps or otherwise, comes down to two main questions:

* If it turns out that all the money I spent in my collecting won't be returned to me, either a profit nor money originally put in to it, am I alright with that?

* If I'm not alright with lacking a return on my money then why am I collecting it in the first place?

Pretty much puts things in priority.

Seems like so many things in life come down to money in the mix somewhere.