State Of The Hobby Today

PekingDuckDog

That is a splendid post!

Geoff

I have always thought that our hobby is a bit of a solitary one. It is easy to sit alone surrounded by stamps, albums, and catalogs for an entire evening. This is unlike some other hobbies which require more than one person. My other hobby, old cars, tends to be far more social. While I might spend an afternoon turning a wrench by myself, in the evening I roll a car out and take my wife to get an ice crème. Many folks, some even not car people, will stop by and socialize about the cars their families used to have, etc.; I rarely show off my stamp collection in any way.

So if our hobby is indeed a bit of a solitary one, it would explain why it translates well to an online hobby. For me, the scary part is that we really have no idea on the size of online stamping population. I think that we might have a huge 'silent majority' online, hobbyists who do not interact with the hobby in the traditional ways. Occasional hobbyists who might only pull their stamps out a few times per year, hobbyists who use this forum but only 'lurk', hobbyists who do not join clubs or organizations. For every one of us who interacts with the hobby in traditional ways, there may be 10 who do not. We just do not know.

But this is why I often harp about website traffic numbers; they give us some insight into how healthy the online aspects of our hobby might be. I truly hope that we are not ignoring what may turn out to be the majority of our hobby.
Don

Stampman2002,




I am a new collector open to joining a club or group, but there are no clubs in my area. I would consider joining a club online that ticked some or most of the following boxes, but I think I am chasing a unicorn!

*Online meeting, in chat or weekly chat with other members;
*Webinars from experienced collectors on topics like how to grow your collection, grading stamps, best practices in collecting, specific presentations around someones collection;
*Opportunities to trade duplicates;
*Mentorship program for new collectors;
and last but not least ----> *A friendly space that is not political, and drama free.

So if anyone sees something like this around, please let me know!

I will also add, from your perspective of getting new members that you can move people from online to in person interactions much easier then just trying to get people in person. Also have you tried websites like meetup to promote your club?

oceanguy: sorry the Virtual Stamps Club isn't what I had hoped it would be. But, I also haven't visited it in a couple years.

Stampman2002 asked what it would take to reconsider a decision to not join a stamp club. Nothing; not interested. I do belong to APS, APRL, Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library, and four specialist societies. I also get Linn's. I prefer to have my social activities in other arenas while reserving philately for my private realm. I do participate some on these online boards as I feel some obligation to make the experience gained from 56+ continuous years of collecting available to newer "stampers."

Times change. This, and the internet generally is the stamp club of today - and it's global too.

This. Especially for younger collectors who have busy lives with work, kids and the other asundries of real life, it is a lot easier to get on the internet and talk about stamps with other collectors from around the world than to block off a certain set time to head out to a meeting with other collectors who may or may not share your same interests philatelically.

The hobby itself I think is fine, and growing. It's the organized part of the hobby based on the model of stamp clubs, brick & mortar stores and exhibitions that is in trouble, and in part that is due to the fact that technology has made the purpose of the first two at least somewhat obsolete (and even the third could be obsolete soon if more collectors post their exhibits online.)

Same here

" It is the organized part of the hobby.....that is in trouble" You could of added that the whole pricing structure used by stamp catalogs are also in trouble . We have done away with pricelist ,dealer ads and stamp store inventories. I would like to know who now tracks prices and makes a market for 95% of the stamps out there ,sure we still got stamp auction houses who publish results for better material .
The problem is the world is full of buyers who understand 1/10 of catalog and less . Sure you can always sell a worldwide collection that catalogs at $165,000 for $10,000. We got a whole generation of ebay sellers who buy on Sunday and want to double their investment on Monday morning . We got sellers who realize they need to list their wares lower than the next seller if they hope to be successful . We got a race to the bottom with pricing and the old timers who hoped to sell their collections or inventory getting desperate to get something for their years of collecting . THAT IS THE STATE OF THE HOBBY .

It is safe to say ,we have stamp catalogs, pricing stamps in their yearly catalogs, using 20 year old models and have no clue to todays prices .They are playing the KEEP-ON-KEEPING-ON pricing method .

I would expect prices to drop as more and more aging or deceased collectors' collections enter the market. The good news is there are avenues to sell like ebay rather than just the dealers who definitely pay as little as possible for general collections.

OceanGuy I would love to talk and discuss with you US stamps. Please send me a pm and we'll get together and talk. I'm in a wheelchair and it is difficult for me to get around so I spend the majority of my time alone.
Tom

It's too bad ebay won't make their numbers public as a stroll through their database would likely be eye opening. Not only could they tell us total sales in the stamp category, but every sub-category as well, they could sort buyers and sellers by country and zip code, and show trends over periods of time. ebay holds more stamp market data - and more detailed data at that - than has ever been compiled anywhere, by about a billion miles. Nothing even close to it exists outside of ebay, and it would be virtually impossible to compile such data at that level of detail for the rest of the market. The best the rest of us can do is place guess that falls somewhere between "wild" and "educated". By no means does ebay have a complete picture of the stamp market, of course, but they have the biggest and broadest piece of it. Their data on individual stamps would be somewhat polluted because you can't really search by catalog number without also pulling up a bunch of nonsense results, but their data on overall sales at the category level should be pretty solid.

floortrader wrote: "We got a race to the bottom with pricing and the old timers who hoped to sell their collections or inventory getting desperate to get something for their years of collecting............"

Floor: I think you and I are about the same age (I turned 67 this month). I may have considered my collecting as somewhat of an investment back in the 1970s after I got out of college; started working; and had more than student disposable income. Then, the never-hinged craze set in, followed in the 1980s by the grading craze.

My approach ever since is that it is a hobby solely for my personal enjoyment. Only place I've ever shown any material is a recent article I wrote for Portu-Info (quarterly journal of the International Society for Portuguese Philately). I have no direct heirs and my collections will go to a combination of the APS, RMPL, and my specialist societies, so that I can support the hobby after I'm gone.

ClimberSteve - no need to apologize about the virtual stamp club, I appreciated you suggesting the possibility. Lots of websites come and go ;-)

I think there are some interesting discussions here around the internet being the stamp club of today. My guess is there are lots of opportunities for existing clubs and organizations to harness the power of the net to not only survive and thrive. Meetups, online forums, chat room, online meetings, this could all help feed stamp related in person events because an initial rapport is built.

Also interesting to me as a new collector is how the catalogue value only seems to apply to older stamps in the most perfect condition for the most part. I have read for most stamps the real value is only between 10 - 25% of catalogue value? Would you say this is accurate? CV is only relevant to me in terms of acquiring stamps. One thing I noticed is that the few locals advertising in our local online classifieds use full CV for stamps that are not close to perfect to the point where I can't imagine they are actually selling much. Certainly any of there offerings can be found with ease online at a fraction of the cost.

sdtom - will drop you a line by email so we can chat ;-)

Will look forward to chatting with you