Our Tastes: Narrowing, Or Broadening?

Our Tastes: Narrowing, or Broadening?

In https://goscf.com/t/48734#421047 forum brother KGB says two things worth repeating:







To address the second, we know that a lot of things mattered less:

- back then, we collected reprints & originals, but today we strongly favor originals;

- back then, we collected cut squares & entires, but today we strongly favor entires;

- back then, we collected addressed & unaddressed FDCs, but today we strongly favor unaddressed (with cachet).

In most cases, it seems that 'our' tastes have narrowed.

Part of this is simply the maturation of the hobby; it is only natural that, as the decades go by, we settle on shared understandings of what goes with what, what is more central vs what is more peripheral, what has lasting value ...

... and I'm sure that we can all come-up with many other examples of the ways in which our tastes have narrowed.

But in what ways has the hobby broadened?

For example:

Q/ Are collections (or winning exhibits) of RPO cancels more or less likely to include related ephemera, such as railway timetables?

Q/ Are collections (or winning exhibits) of any kind more or less likely to include ancillary text way beyond the particulars of the stamp itself?

Q/ Whatchatink?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

de gustibus non est disputandum

What is neat one year in the hobby a few years later becomes about as popular as an ice machine maker in the Antarctic.

I do think it overall though it has broadened, in that we are now looking more at not just the technical aspects of stamp production and the multitude of varieties that can result, but exactly because more and more collectors and exhibitors are looking at how the stamps were used in what is of course their primary task, carrying the posts. So in that sense the shift to focus on entires instead of cut squares for example actually opens up more vistas of enquiry because there is more material physically to analyze for markings etc.

While I primarily focus on just stamps, having read various threads here and the other stamp forum about postal history usage makes me interested in someday doing some interest in that, particularly since I am a huge fan of socked on nose stamps if I collect used. The cancel on the stamp though is not the whole story, but just one element of the journey of that stamp from sender to receiver.

I think the narrowing is part of a larger phenomenon connected with the collection of historical artifacts, whether it be stamps, coins, toys, furniture, books etc. That is, the closer such artifacts are to their original state in their original context or environment the better. Thus entires are more desirable than cut squares or stamps on piece, mint NH stamps are more desirable than mint hinged stamps, Barbies in their unopened original boxes are more desirable than used ones, uncirculated coins are more desirable than worn ones, original vintage furniture is more valuable than restored furniture, etc.

Agreed, dudley; the same narrowing is seen across all of the mass-produced collectibles.

Any thoughts on where things have broadened?

I agree with DJCMHOH that postal history is doing well, but I do not think of postal history, itself, as something new. Even if the Postal History Foundation itself is only 50-odd years old, Helen Morgan's book Blue Mauritius (if memory serves) cited articles published a century/more ago.

Topical collecting is a broadening of the hobby. There could be no such thing back when every stamp was a Dead White Head or Live Royal Head, but it sure came roaring to life once stamp design loosened-up and the newly-independent former colonies punched-up the number of topical stamps.

So in what other ways has the hobby broadened?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Well of course there are new printing methods, new adhesives, die cutting and whatnot. And let's not forget there are more countries issuing stamps now than ever before - think of the former Soviet and Yugloslav republics for starters. So what we collect has broadened in that respect. Our tools have also broadened with the internet and computers. I think that collectors who have a desire to learn more about their hobby are able to learn (and are, in fact, learning) a lot more about their hobby than they were 20+ years ago. I wasn't collecting seriously as an adult in the pre-internet era, but I can guarantee my knowledge is vastly broader than it would have been back in that era. My collecting tastes are likely much broader as a result.

To circle back to the narrowing, much of that is due to the flood of newer issues, going well back into the last century. More people used to collect cut squares because there weren't as many stamps to collect. In the US, people collected plate blocks and FDC's because the post office only issued literally a few stamps per year. They needed to collect all those things to maintain their interest in the hobby. Now a new US collector has a catalog of nearly 5000 stamps to work on before they even get to the classics. They simply don't need to collect cut squares and FDC's and plate blocks and what have you just to maintain their interest.

We collected cut squares & plate blocks & FDCs because we were desperate for something more to collect?

Dare one extend this logic to perforation & watermark varieties?

Oh, dear.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Until recently I had an album which I had started in pre-PC days. I got about 20 pages in with my references confined almost solely to what Stanley Gibbons stated in their catalogues, plus a small amount from Chambers Biographical Dictionary.

Then came the PC and the internet. With not only Gibbons but also various internet catalogues available, plus the vast repository that is Wikipedia, the range and depth of my collection has at least doubled. Areas where Gibbons had it - and continues to have it, in successive editions - frankly wrong have been noted and marked in the book.

I refer here (as the OP probably knows) to the personalities and events commemorated on stamps, rather than their technical specifications, in which I have little interest. There is still an enormous amount to be unearthed about stamp production in the non-technical sense (if indeed the information is out there somewhere); even in my area of interest there has been an increase of information available in the last five years.

In my biographical database of people on WW2-connected stamps I have nearly 600 names. Of these, a mere thirty appear to have no internet trace at all (all of them Eastern European communists, as it happens). That represents a massive increase in available knowledge from pre-internet days, when several reference books would have been needed; without the internet's automatic translation feature, only a fraction of those names would have been traceable.

Excellent question Ikey,

I think that the biggest area where things have broadened in the last 10 years is postal history. Certainly the broadening seems to mirror my own growing interest in postal history, but what I understand from older collectors that postal history was not a broadly respected field in philately 20 or more years ago. Now everyone loves postal history. In part I would credit online stamp forums, especially this one for broadening the interest in postal history.

Been thinking on this one for awhile, Ikey. If we take the literal meaning of "[adhesive] stamp collecting" as the point of origin, then anything within modern philately that falls outside this range constitutes a broadening. This would include most aspects of postal history, as smauggie has indicated (especially the apparent antithesis of stamp collecting, stampless covers). It would also include aspects of "stamp collecting" that do not focus on the stamp itself as an artifact but rather on associated aspects of its use, design or production (cancellations, thematics, etc.)

In the world of FDC's, I think there has been a "broadening" in the variety of ways in which FDC's are now illustrated. While hand painted covers go back a long way, they are probably more common now than they once were. Also, there is a lot more "amateur" production of FDC's, and less "commercial" production (witness the demise now of all the one-time "big" commercial FDC producers). As one example, John White's catalog of the FDC's for the recent Coast Guard stamp is now up to nearly 300 "unique" cachets, most by relatively unknown or "boutique" producers:

http://www.fdcusa.com/AFDCS/FDC_Catalogue_5008.PDF

I only know about this example because I participated in the creation of FDC's for this issue, and contributed to the development of the catalog. But I would imagine that something similar is happening with other issues. While the "big" FDC producers have gone out of business, the number of cachet producers has exploded because of the ease of producing cachets with PC's and color printers.

Basil

Thank you, everyone.

Basil's points about FDCs got me thinking.

Once upon a time, FDCs were like countries.

Just as you collected France or Germany, you collected Artcraft or Fleetwood.

You picked an issuer, and Completionism helped sustain your subscription.

But, as new publishers entered the field, they had the odd effect of discrediting one another.

After all, each new cachet maker 'proved' that anybody could grow up to become a cachet maker.

And, necessarily, each new cachet maker broadened the defintion of what a cachet could & should be.

Sticking with an older style became difficult when any of the newer styles appealed.

And that led to the next thought: "If I am not going to continue and be complete, why bother?"

And that led to widespread selling (dumping), and the collapse of the FDC resale market, such as it ever was.

And that led to the decline of the major cachetmakers.

The King Is Dead.

Long Live The King.

Without the (forgive me) cachet of a major cachetmaker, cacheted FDCs will only be valued for their value added.

Resale prices will be expected to be lower than purchase prices, rather as if you were renting your FDCs.

More people will collect multiple FDCs of a given stamp, for whatever tie that binds.

There will be no (almost no) Completionism.

There will be no (almost no) Investmentism.

The Golden Age of FDC collecting is upon us.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey