Stamp Collecting's Defiant Last Stand

The $36M was sales for the last 90 days.

"KRelyea Posted - Today :37 Min ago
The $36M was sales for the last 90 days."

Thanks - corrected

All major auctions have international buyers.

Really getting tired of the negativity coming up all too frequently on this site. We are all going to die too. So what!! If you are enjoying the hobby; enjoy it and stop worrying about its "demise". The hobby is going to outlast me and every other member here. If some of us can't live with that, maybe you should take up golf which appears also to be on the wane but probably isn't. Find something else to talk about - let's see more of your stamps or maybe let's discuss some of the articles on our hobby in the wonderful journals "still" being published by BNAPS, the RPSC and other organizations. Sorry for the rant! Kudos to Wert and others who are enjoying their collections and sharing their findings.

"all major auctions have international buyers.............." Such a blanket statement........... But I was referring to WESTPEX only.

The iminent demise of stamp collecting has been loudly proclaimed for about 80 years now... I suppose eventually the handwringers and gnashers of teeth will be correct. Likely not in my lifetime though.

They said the imminent demise was at hand in the later 1990's just before something called ebay started .

I was there, and am proud to now be the owner of some ex-Lawrence Block items.

I was, in general, favorably impressed by the realizations. I expected most to go for well over estimate (the estimates in the big show sales are almost always low, to attract punters) but there were a few that were exceptional. For example, the lot I was hottest for was Block's French colonies. In the end, that went for $9500, or thereabouts -- I wasn't the winner.

However, here are four things to know about the Lawrence Block sales:

1. The collections were high-grade for a general worldwide collection. No unobtainables, but many hundreds of scarce stamps, and lots of "95% complete for the pages"-type groups.

2. Condition was excellent, especially in the 19th century issues. Very impressive.

3. Lawrence Block is quite famous in the stamp collecting community. He's even famous outside the stamp collecting community, as one of the all time best-selling mystery authors.

4. Most of the collections were put together in the 1980s and 1990s, and as Mr. Block was (correctly) selective about condition, the scarcer items were purchased as singles or sets.

He got some excellent realizations -- better than most people would get thanks to points #1, #2, and #3 -- but given #4, I'd be shocked if he got half the money he spent back. The man just liked to spend money on stamps, he dropped hundreds of thousands on them, of course there'll be some spirited bidding when he sells: but that doesn't mean the hobby isn't on the downturn.

In that French colonies lot, there were a dozen stamps, at least, that would have been lotted separately thirty years ago. You know it! Most of his other lots were like that, too. Super nice collection. But unless there's some miraculous renaissance in the hobby, in twenty years that $9.5K lot is a $5K lot. Maybe not even that. (Do you know many young people who collect stamps, or ever collected stamps? ...With money?) Nothing there was unobtainable; there was a lot that was "scarce," but stamp collectors themselves are scarce, and collectors young enough to buy my collection after I'm gone basically don't exist. Patience, because some time tomorrow, I'll get it cheaper: that has to be the motto for anybody buying right now.

CODEHAPPY---Thanks for that insight into the Block collection ,I was bidding on his material but have not seen it before hand and really not knowing what it had naturally limited my bidding . Good to hear you got something .

Bring on the lower prices! The higher prices may be limiting potential buyers.

codeheppy: Do you know many young people who collect stamps, or ever collected stamps? ...With money?

An interesting observation. Combine that with a general lack of "extra" cash due to a sluggish economy among older collectors who (theoretically) *do* have money...

...and you have to enjoy the hobby for what it is.

Cordially...

And back we come to the money and "profit" meme. This poor dead horse is beat beyond recognition by now. Does it really matter????

Too much focus on the few "diamonds" that most collectors will probably never be able to acquire, when the vast majority of stamps are affordable and can be the basis of an excellent collection. But because the high value blue chip items make good copy in the philatelic press, they are what grab the headlines, and that may indeed give new collectors the wrong impression that stamp collecting is only for those with deep pockets.

My pockets aren't deep, but that doesn't prevent me from enjoying the hobby and purchasing the "meat and potato" stamps that form the bulk of a postal entity's output. Maybe one day I'll hit a jackpot that let's me splurge on a big ticket item to add to the collection, but for now, I'm just gonna enjoy the hobby to the best of my ability as my resources allow. And if I don't make a profit on what I collect later in life, I know that I still have profitted over the years just from the enjoyment and relaxation factors the hobby has provided.

And in the end, isn't that what a hobby is supposed to be about?

Dealers should make money from selling material. Unless they have holding a lot of stock where they paid outrageous prices, they should be able make money at any price level. The question is just volume...dealers made money at much lower price levels.

Those who insist on touting the demise of stamp collecting need to look back at periodicals from any point; they will find there are always those who proclaim that "stamp collecting is a dying hobby," yet here we are in the 21st century and we're still at it.

It is changing, and will continue to do so. While most of us in it today started as kids, the collectors of the future will not get their start in that manner. Oh, they may have seen one of their parents or grandparents working over stamps in their collections, but as kids, they won't take the bug.

Where I believe we'll find the most reception will be in the over 45 age bracket. They'll be looking for something meaningful to help them occupy the time they now have since their kids are grown and out of the house. While the future generations may have spent hours and hours playing video games, as they've grown, most will have outgrown their fascination with video gaming. Initially, some will enjoy golf and fishing or other outdoor pursuits, but eventually, they will find something which will provide the mental stimulation they will find missing.

This is the age demographic which should be courted most heavily by organized philately, not kids. It is nice to interest kids in stamps and when it can be done as an adjunct to collecting, go for it. But the real gold mine will be the older generations.

Numbers don't lie. There are just too many people buying stamps every day on the internet, whether it's via dealer websites, auction houses or e-commerce sites such at ebay for stamp collecting to be going the way of the dodo bird or carrier pigeon.

We're all going to die and give up our collections someday; it's just part of being human. I haven't figured out a way to take the collection with me and I don't know that I might want to, once I find out what the next existence will entail. Something someone once said to me was that "We're only caretakers of what we collect, holding it for those who come after us." That's how I choose to look at what I do.

No offense to those who believe the hobby's dying, but you are just wrong. It happens; we're all wrong from time to time. If you are that worried about it, perhaps it's time to find something which provides you with constant enjoyment as it would appear stamp collecting has become too much of a worry.

I have a lot of fun with my collection. I've spent a fair amount on it and will continue to do so until I'm gone. If my heirs get something out of it, great. So much the better for them. What I'm getting out of it is the thrill of the chase, the constant increase of knowledge and the sheer fun of putting together a collection I LIKE.

I would hope everyone who collects anything or is engaged in any other hobby finds all the enjoyment in their pursuits I find in mine.

We'd all like to know the future of stamp collecting, but the truth is we really don't know. It's fine to cite other activities that were popular but aren't anymore, cite statistics about stamp auctions and online sales to show the hobby's vitality to help predict what will happen with stamp collecting, but we really don't know. I think we can agree that stamp collecting is changing -- even if we can't always agree on what those changes are.

In fairly recent history (1950s, 60s) stamp collecting was a widely popular hobby served by stamp stores and mail order companies. Albums and stamps were widely available in retail outlets. There were many stamp clubs, many children took up the hobby, many prominent and successful adults collected stamps. "That" version of stamp collecting no longer exists even if some parts of it do. I live in Los Angeles, an urban area of 10 million people, and I don't know of a single stamp store anymore. There are lots of stores, however, which sell video games.

What we generally have today is a somewhat different style hobby: stamp sales online instead of in stores, fewer young people going into the hobby (too much video "gaming"), and an aging of the hobby. But we also have very active stamp sales on ebay and through mail order dealers. I buy stamps (and albums!) from the UK and Europe and sometimes even from Asia. Most collectors didn't do those things before. I have far more choices of albums than before due to online selling. I'm a member of many stamp societies whose journals I get, and I read a number of online stamp blogs which never existed before. That's not a hobby that's in its death throes. But it is a different hobby from fifty years ago.

Stamp collecting began in the later 19th century. The first published stamp albums date to then. There were stamp societies, journals, dealers, and shows. In the 1930s and 40s, stamp collecting had its greatest growth era. The Great Depression led more people to take up collecting as an inexpensive form of recreation they could enjoy. It was like going to the movies (which also boomed in the '30s) -- cheap and fun and something you could do alone. By the 1950s and '60s, stamp collecting was a widespread, popular hobby that coincided with the Baby Boom, and a lot of those kids "boomed" the hobby. Many of those kids are us today.

Today the number of collectors is no longer growing. But I don't think stamp collecting is "dying". Instead, it continues with changes. Stamp publications, never very large in their circulation, have mostly disappeared. Collectors remain older, primarily white, males. Stamp prices may level off even for good stamps, a development likely to be popular with many collectors. For some collectors today, self-printed albums replace preprinted albums, an interesting change. And unlike in the U.S., There has been a boom in the number of collectors in parts of Asia, China for one. In those countries, stamps are often seen as a way to invest, to store your money against currency problems. Statistics about the number of collectos often focus only on the U.S. or the West. I'm not sure that makes sense.

I think stamp collecting will still be around in 50 years. Maybe it will be a smaller hobby. And it will be different. Maybe stamp magazines and newspapers will be gone. Maybe stamp clubs and societies will be fewer, and maybe there will be fewer collectors. But that's not the "death" of stamp collecting. It's change like sales moving more online and away from brick and mortar stores with their high overhead.

A few years ago there was a widespread belief that computers would soon kill books. Libraries might even die. Book sales would drop. Bookstores would go out of business. That didn't happen. More books are sold today than before, readers still prefer paper not screens, and libraries (and many bookstores) are still around. Reading and book sales did change, but computers did not kills books. That's what will happen to our hobby, "change" not "death".