Stamp Collecting's Defiant Last Stand

Yup, and people still did / do stuff in the dark after electricity was invented :)

but you wrote"




and what I was trying to say is Westpex isn't unique, that all major auctions suffer what you seem to think is a distortion from international buyers.

Re: Younger people in stamp collecting.
I'm in my early 40s, and have a lot of friends who range from my age down to the late 20s.
One thing that occurs to me is there is one group of young people who could be interested in collecting stamps, a group who already is into lots of anachronistic things: hipsters.
Now don't laugh, these are people who..hmm how did that quote go "borrowed nostalgia for an unremembered past".
Anyway, people in their 20s into vinyl records, cassette tapes, typewriters, etc. Why not stamps?

Put out series of stamps of cool old fashioned typewriters, in fact *obtainable* ones so collecting the stamps and the matching items could be a 'thing'.
Every record store day put out stamps celebrating the top 5 vinyl records sold.
Put out stamps of cassettes and walkmans
Put out stamps of ridiculous old timey mustache styles.

I'm being somewhat facetious, but not completely..
They are part of a younger generation who having grown up with everything being digital, crave the physical, even if deemed old fashioned by most.

Bun stamps!

Now I'm sorry I suggested it haha

I've often thought of this as a reason why stamp collecting might not be as doomed as some people think it is. There is clearly a desire among a sizable slice of the population to stay connected to the "analog" world. There are a lot of things I like about collecting stamps, but an opportunity to disconnect from gadgetry for awhile is definitely one of them.

I think the difference with stamp collecting is it is hidden from that demographic, which is where some intentional tie-ins to some of the already popular analog might be useful to get their attention.

Not just hipsters. One of my other hobbies is fountain pens. I belong to a Facebook group that has over 17,000 members, which skews young (lots of young, artistically oriented people like to use fountain pens). They are letter writers, and there are frequently comments about upcoming stamp issues, or the use of discount postage for letters. There was some commentary today about the upcoming eclipse stamp. Most of these people will never be stamp collectors in the traditional sense, but stamps are visible to, and appreciated by, them, and that's at least a start.

Paperhistory brings up a good point and then almost misses it. If the fountain pen group is already looking at, and using discount postage, it is a fair bet that some of those 17K members are collecting.

Where I believe the traditional philatelic community is missing the mark is trying to "force" traditional philately on the hidden masses of collectors. I've said it before, but someone has to be buying all those stamps on ebay, Hipstamp, Delcampe and other venues. Some people will never enter what we have all traditionally looked upon as mainstream philately for any number of reasons.

What we, in mainstream philately, must do is find ways of making what we believe in appealing. And hope that someone who finally decides to go to a show doesn't run into a grumpy old dealer who "doesn't have time" for them. More on that in a bit...

Perhaps inviting some of the fountain pen collectors who've talked about letter writing and discount postage to join us here could be a start.

Grumpy old dealers. We've all run into them. They come in a variety of sizes and types, but they generally have a common theme to them. It goes something along the line that "What I've got is great, but unless you want to buy it, I don't want to know you."

A corollary to this is that the dealer's material is red hot and he can't possibly replace it at twice what he's selling it for, but the minute someone wants to sell something, the market's immediately collapsed and he can only offer a small, token price to buy it, because he will ultimately be taking a loss...

ASDA dealers have been working on this mindset, along with the leadership - at least from what I've read. Unfortunately, we've a long way to go.

I'm not saying dealers should sell for less than catalogue and pay full catalogue for what they buy; that just wouldn't work. But when you see material you know what it sold for at auction being offered for sale at 756% markup, I just have to shake your head. Is that realistic? Not in the least, when the material far exceeded expectations. Unfortunately, there will be some unfortunate collector who will buy this material (hopefully not, though). When he/she or the heirs go to sell it, they will realize they were taken and then we'll have another whole group of people talking about being taken by a stamp seller.

The only way I know of the try and stop this is to boycott those dealers who either overprice material or have the grumpy old man attitudes. That's what I do. What I don't know how to do is to let those who are not part of traditional philately know the difference.

Perhaps this is another way to get people to talk with us here, at shows and in the community stamp clubs...

But what exactly constitutes "overpriced"? There are many (including some here on this board) that firmly believe that anything priced higher than 25% or 50% of Scott is overpriced or "gouging". ebay has created somewhat of a dumpster diving mentality amongst certain collectors. Depending on scarcity or condition, 500% of Scott could be construed as a relative bargain, but to a certain segment of collectors that will always be viewed as a "ripoff".

One collector's ripoff is another collector's bargain.

High-profile dealers that specialize routinley price their merchandise at levels the typical ebay buyer would scream howls of anguish at... yet the material sells.

How exactly would one go about identifying dealers worthy of boycott based strictly upon price? That's a slippery slope and one I cannot personally support.

Now identifying dealers to boycott based upon moral/ethical practices is a different matter.

Okay, the items in question sold for $99.20 each at auction. These are outside the catalog, being photographic essays. The larger dealers, such as Henry Gitner, price them at $125-$150 each. I could entertain even a price of $175-$200.00 each, especially for material from the 1920's. But seriously, $650-$750 each?????

That's exorbitant, at least in my book...

You have peoples selling $ 20 stuff at $ 400 on Amazon , not stamp or collectible item, regular stuff

Believe it or not though, any seller, whether on ebay, brick & mortar, or at shows, has the absolute right to price their merchandise as they see fit, just as buyers have the right to not purchase from them. Taking the step of arranging boycotts or filing complaints based on pricing is a slippery slope, not to mention entirely subjective, as value is in the mind of the beholder.

The marketplace will ultimately determine whether something is overpriced or not.

Focusing efforts on dealers that are "too expensive" is a mistake, in my opinion. Pricing is far less of a problem than unethical listing practices.

I simply wouldn't go down that road.

I will pay more for low dollar items if it is a space I want to fill.

My benchmark for a dealer is the price they sell the Scott 1053 Hamilton. If they price it at Scott's (over priced in my opinion) then the dealer is following Scott's and not the market. I may ignore much from them so I could miss some properly priced items. I buy standard material meaning nothing unique (like postal history, etc).

I can see some sellers just looking for the one person who will pay more for an item by relisting it repeatedly rather than reduce the price slightly.