Another Casualty Due To Dwindling Interest In Philately

I just read the Masonic Stamp Club of NY will close as of January 1, 2017 due to lack of interest in both Masonic membership and stamps:

http://www.mscnewyork.net/

Quite sad really, as I found their publications made for some interesting reading. Their most recent issue (June 2016) may be found here:

http://www.mscnewyork.net/uploads/9..._revised.pdf

This is the first I had heard of a decline in Masonic Order membership. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Fraternal orders are not doing well with younger people. It is all part of societal change but it's still sad.

Just went to the site and read the last issue, in yellow, Whom ever publishes that needs to get ahold of linn's--Love the way the whole thing is laid out--the look and the info--Linns should take some notes-awesome group of info there--excellent pictures and write ups--

My GrandPa Dave was a Mason, and proud of it.

The country was re-shuffled after WW2; the GI Bill & postwar economic boom & automobiles/suburbs broke the social continuity that fraternal organizations rely on.

And then came TeeVee, and everybody could stay home and feel like they'd gone out ...

"sub-wiki" : when a person knows less about a subject than they would if they had read the relevant article in the Wikipedia, their understanding of that subject is sub-wiki.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

The suggestion that some broader dwindling interest in philately drove this decision appears overstated. Did this group ever market itself, say, by advertising in the major collectors publications, this forum, or elsewhere? If you want to grow, you have to market and advertise. This week's Linns reports the opening of a new retail stamp shop in Portland, Oregon. Sounds like someone on the other side of the country sees interest in philately increasing, not dwindling.

The Linn's article on the Portland, Oregon stamp store is interesting. Realistically, what level of sales would it take to sustain a business and provide the revenue to pay for utilities and other fixed costs? When "brick and mortar" retailers of all kinds are being crushed by Amazon and the other online sellers, what makes this stamp store the exception?

I'm not being a doomster. There's ample evidence to be doubtful.

The previous methods used to determine stamp collecting popularity included organization/club membership populations, hobby periodical subscription levels, number of local stamp stores, stamp show attendance, and stamp pricing trends. These traditional metrics are no longer as applicable as they once were because the hobby has changed so much over the last 10-15 years. Consider the stamp pricing trends metric. Over the last 15 years has the stamp marketplace been influenced by there being fewer hobbyists or has it been impacted by the huge increase of online collectors-turned-dealers? I know of no empirical data which we can refer to and argue that one thing or the other has had a greater impact.

Additionally no one has come up with a good way to measure and understand the number of online hobbyists. I think more and more hobbyists have moved away from memberships, subscriptions and going to local stores/shows in favor of online activities.

If this is true, then until we develop new ways to understand the hobby's general health it might be wise to be careful about drawing conclusions during this time of changing landscape.
Don

If the Babyboomer Returning To The Hobby meme is worth anything, then the Masons ought to be a hotbed of returning stamp collectors ... or, are the Masons more the Dads of Babyboomers?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

"No one has come up with a good way to measure and understand the number of online hobbyist" You never heard of the "JUNK LOT INDICATOR" this is the most scientific accurate way to know the trends in the stamp collecting market place .
Back in the late 1980's and most of the 1990's the indicator shown that you could fill up the back of a Chev K-5 Blazer for around $600.00 with boxes from the public stamp auctions. This was done dozens of times. Then around 2002 ,the indictor show that you could only fill half the rear seats of a Honda CRV for $600.00 and this lasted until 2015 . But the indicator now points to filling up the back of a Nissan Rouge for $1,000.00 . Not as good as the 1990's but a long way from the crazy internet seller days of the 2003 to 2014 period . JUNK LOT INDICATOR is very accurate .

The question of the state of collecting is hard to answer as 51studebaker points out. I tend to look at ebay as a good indicator of the marketplace. I just went in and did a search on a relatively common classic US stamp, Scott # 221 and looked at the last 10 auctions for an OG (not NH) stamp that looked to have Fine centering to my eye.

Here is what I found:

In the last 10 such successful auctions all had low starting bids. 8 auctions received between 8 and 10 bids. One had 14, One with just 4. The prices averaged at $6.90 with a a standard deviation of about 2. The range was from $5.50 to $12 with one outlier at $16.30.

There were only two recent auctions for this stamp that didn't sell and both had high starting bids.

What this tells me is:

There is an active market for this stamp. Put up a good looking Fine centered OG 221 and you can pretty well count on a decent competition and a fair price. Yes there is a range of prices, so it is not the most efficient market, but it is certainly not a poor market.

My general observation based on experience is that stamps that look nice and are worth between 5 and 50 dollars will generally get this type of action. High priced items don't attract that attention and so most dealers correctly opt for fixed price sales for more valuable material. Putting up a rare stamp with a low starting price is likely to end up as a losing proposition.

I don't know what this all means, but there is certainly plenty of action out there and a very active market for decent quality material of interest to non-investor type collectors. (Investors are not likely to be buying Fine centered common stamps.)

So clubs - gone, kids - mostly gone, but the market is still very active. Whatever that means it seems like it is quite premature to declare philately as fading away.

Rick

The question of whether philately is on the decline is an endlessly fascinating one to me. Many such discussions have taken place on this forum. My take is that philately is certainly evolving, and one can make the case that it is "graying" (look at the ages of the new members listed in every issue of The American Philatelist). But does this mean that it is dying? Not necessarily. So it's become an older person's hobby--so what? As has been said, to judge by market activity the hobby is rather vibrant. The one thing that would concern me is the extent to which the people who are becoming involved in organized philately late in life are returning to the hobby or discovering it for the first time. If the hobby is being sustained by returnees then there is a problem, because it is certainly true that far fewer people nowadays are taking up the hobby at a young enough age to be able to return to it later. It might be the case that we are now witnessing a bump of interest on the part of the last generation to have actively pursued stamp collecting as a youthful hobby.

... and that may be the good news!

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/...p25-1143.pdf ... see Page Five ... US population aged 65/+ will ~double by 2060!

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I can't speak to the costs of real estate and utilities in Portland, but it sounds like this dealer is selling through multiple channels, and walk-in customers are just a small part. It sounds like he's taking a smart approach, turning over inventory quickly and more cheaply rather than trying to have massive holdings that he sits on for a long time before it sells. He brings in guest dealers occasionally to increase traffic, etc, so I think he's got the right attitude. Edited to add that the store is only open 15 hours per week, so it's almost certainly not foot traffic keeping him open.

The store looks great from pictures I have seen and it sounds like they are trying to bring back the 'good old days' with the set-up. Good luck to them.
If their online service is anything to go by, they will succeed big time. I have made over a dozen purchases in the last months since the opening and they are just superb ! Service, items, packing, mailing, bargains....all 100% perfect. A rarity in this day and age.

I wish I lived in Portland !

Londonbus1

I see where risny is coming from (post on July 31), with trying to compare sales of US Scott #221. However, I think it's a very incomplete picture to review and compare only classic US. Not everyone around here actively collects US. I think it better to look at auction results for companies like Kelleher, Rasdale, Rumsey, and maybe also check out how much of Dr. Bob Friedman's inventory gets sold out in each of his 6 annual collection sales. I get his flyers and don't see a lot of stuff ending up being carried over.

Breakeven probably is $1500 to $2000 per month in sales. Commercial lease rates in Portland are low and he's in a small space. Public data shows that a remodel permit valued at $35K was pulled in January, which is not a big build-out.

The owner is a full-time trial lawyer at his own firm in Portland and appears to be pursuing this "on the side". I hope it succeeds, but on first reading, the Linn's story reminded me of those lawyers and doctors I know in Silicon Valley who achieved success as professionals and then headed up to Napa to make wine. Several of them ended up with a small fortune from that business ... after starting with a large fortune.