Can Collecting Be A Great Investment As Well As A Great Interest?

The area where gain can occur is from the buying of a rare variety for the price of a regular common stamp due to the seller not knowing what the buyer knows about the stamp. Another area may also be for some of the more expensive and rare sought after stamps that have gone up in value over the years.

eyeonwall,

I didn't make any suggestion at all. I merely asked a question in response to your woeful post. "Why didn't the ASDA invest in an internet marketplace decades ago?" Further, if they did, I may have missed it.

Why so touchy? I have no facts to provide about the travails of being a dealer in the modern age as I am not a dealer. I can only suggest that if dealers are being displaced by amateurs then they are doing something wrong (e.g., by not providing some differentiating service etc.). However, maybe what you say is not happening at all.

You make several assumptions without providing any facts:
1. Amateur hobbyist are taking over the hobby.
2. Full time dealers are being displaced by amateurs
3. The hobby is losing its knowledge base
4. "We will soon have the blind leading the blind"

None of those suppositions were supported by facts. Yet when I ask a question, presuming your remarks have some truth to them, you ask me for facts?

Don't really think the hobby is "losing its knowledge base" - just look on this and other fora and you'll find collectors whose knowledge about their collecting interests far surpasses most dealers. The problem with the knowledge is being able to access it, and the internet makes that process much easier than before via google searches, collector websites etc. So in that sense I think collectors have the potential today to be *more* educated about stamps than any time before. Definitely not 'the blind leading the blind' so long as the collector makes at least some form of effort to educate himself or herself on the hobby.

As for full time dealers being supplanted by amateurs, like I've said before what existed was a market oligopoly of a few thousand dealers who maintained control of supply (especially for rarer stamps) and that oligopoly has been busted by the global marketplace that the internet provides. Personally as a collector with little interest in looking for "investment" for the future in the hobby, now is clearly the best of times to build collections, especially if one is not a Never Hinged fetishist or has to insist on 90+ grade stamps as defined by self-proclaimed experts.

The revolution is here, and the average collector will benefit the most, while the old elite that dominated the hobby finds its ability to maintain its "control" over the terms of participation in the hobby beyond an introductory level slipping further and further away. And this "democratization" of the hobby, I maintain, is a GOOD thing for the long term health of the hobby as a hobby to be enjoyed as a past time to make life a bit less stressful.

I would say the average "knowledge" level is rising due to access of information but are there people filling the shoes of George Brett, etc? The information to research is likely getting harder to get..law of diminishing returns.

It's more easy to find average knowledge on the Web , but the real specialized information is often only available in books, and they are outdated, out of print and barely no one write book anymore sine they don't sell.

There is a strong and ongoing effort by all the major philatelic libraries across the world to digitize and share their holdings; making them more available to everyone then ever before. Index is here http://catalog.stamplibrary.org/Inm...ie/opac.aspx

The biggest obstacle for this digitization effort are copyrights.

But I do agree that there is a type of philatelic 'brain drain' going on…

I think one of the greatest philatelic sins is when people take their decades of knowledge and experience to the grave with them. This is why there is a standing offer to post any article, album, exhibit, or any other philatelic resources on Stamp Smarter. If anyone would like to have anything they have done shared with the community, please contact me and we can get it published for everyone to benefit. Think of it as a path to immortality.

Don

Hungary,
I apologize.

While it does show the hobby isn't dead, it says nothing about whether it is bigger, smaller, or the same as before the internet.

Since some of you seem to doubt we are losing our knowledge base, I offer one example from this past weekend at Westpex. The PSE will not expertize the Philippine Victory handstamps because it can not find anyone who is an acceptable expert. And that is hardly the only thing that can no longer be expertized.

While its easier for collectors to be informed, at least on a superficial level, very few of them will compete with the expertise of long-time dealers, especially those in a specialized area. Take any given stamp that retails in the hundreds of dollars. Most collectors will be lucky to see one of them in their lifetime, at least on a long-term basis. A long-time dealer may well see dozens or even hundreds of that same stamp over his career. He knows from memory how well centered (or not) they normally are, typical cancellations, any printing issues, shades, plate flaws, etc. While it is possible for collectors to obtain that kind of info via philatelic literature, very few of them will do so. While the democratization of the marketplace has obvious upsides, it doesn't come without costs, and losing the knowledge of full-time dealers would be one of them.

Hungary for Stamps: APS has had an internet stamp store for quite a few years now and APS stands behind its products. I would much rather buy there, for my specialty interests, than try to negotiate the morass known as ebay, where fraudsters sell right next to legitimate dealers.

Perhaps it would be a benefit for those with expertise to train others, including experts, expertizers and dealers with specialized knowledge. I would probably pay for training. But I can't spend a week in Bellefonte PA.

Training and knowledge-based content (e.g., online) is one way dealers can differentiate their services from the amateur.

eyeonewall,

Thanks. No problem. Sorry if I was out of line.

The best way to make money off stamps:
Find valuable collections that are being sold off by people who inherited them and have no idea of their value or the best place/manner to sell them.

The best way to lose money off stamps:
Be the person who leaves such a collection to his heirs without proper instruction for its disposal.

But in the meantime remember than an auction house or a dealer will want to take a huge cut of the proceeds in either case.

Although I collect for pleasure not profit I hate to think in years to come my collection will be worth less then it is today.

Most of if not all my spare money goes on stamps,
i wonder what the average budget people spend on their collection ?