My First APS Stampshow

The typical travel logistics can often be challenging; but imagine that you also had to make arrangements for dialysis treatments including getting your medical records and treatment history to a far-away dialysis center. You also have hope that the treatment center even has an open chair for you.

Surely there is a significant number of hobbyists in the stamp collecting demographic who find travel difficult (if not impossible). The lack of support for those of us who are 'travel-challenged' is disappointing and the reason why I have not renewed my APS membership this year.
Don

Today was day 1 of Stampshow '18 here in Columbus. Had a great time. Got through about 1/4 of the exhibits (focused on the thematics) and attended the USPS first day ceremony for the Dragon stamps (my first FD Ceremony!). Was standing room only for it - they definitely did not have neough seating! APS, ATA and Postal Service doing a wonderful job with this Dragons theme - kids at the show I think would have a lot of fun. Huge bourse, and what was said earlier about A&D never having seats free was the truth - you almost need reservations to get one. A great mix of dealers.

Went to a couple of the talks/forums as well. First went to the "launch" of the new Scott Rail Transport Thematic Album. All in color on a white stock paper, only covers continental Americas (no Caribbean), and all stamps are shown as singles, no Souvenir Sheets or se-tenants. Album retailing for US$110, which also includes 20 blank pages for collectors to add ephemera and other items related to the theme (or pages for souvenir sheets). Overall the people from Scott were eyeing this as a "test" of the thematic market and if successful they will likely do the rest of the world over a few volumes. Will be interesting to see how it evolves.

The second talk I went to was done by Linn's Stamp News as a town-hall type meeting to discuss with collectors how best Linn's can work with the collector community going forward. Some interesting ideas, talking about reaching out further to stamp clubs to promote their activities, and in particular making greater use of digital and social media. One collector suggested they should make more use of Youtube to put together a series of professionally made "Stamp Collecting 101" type videos that a lot of those in attendance agreed with.

One thing I mentioned was that if Linn's wanted to have more interaction with collectors in the 35-55 age group (which is an area Linn's is looking to expand its subscriber base) then they need to interact more with the various Philatelic forums such as Stampboards and Stamp Community, which have thousands of visitors each day, many of whom are NOT members of organized clubs and for whom, in many ways, the forums have become their "Stamp Club". Another line of discussion brought up by a young lady in the room was the need for Linn's and Scott to improve their apps, which gets nothing but an "AMEN" from me, they really need to be made much more mobile-user friendly.

You could tell there was a bit of a generation split in the room, with the few of us who were under 55 bringing up a lot of ideas revolving around digital and social media, while many of the older generation seemed to think that this was somewhat like chasing windmills. I mentioned another important tool was to use social media such as Facebook (which Linn's uses sparingly) and one older lady went into a tirade about how evil Facebook was and that she would never use any sort of digital media that required her to log in.

I will say the people from Linn's holding the discussion did seem to recognize that the future of the hobby is in the digital sphere and will be moreso as the years progress, which is a positive thing. At the same time, they also realize that a large part of their current subscriber base prefer the old hardcopy newspaper and do not get involved in the digital world at all. How they bridge that gap in generations over the next decade will likely determine the future of Linn's, and indeed the hobby as a whole.

Overall a fun first day!

Great summary. Thank you for taking the time to write.

Good info . thanks hope you post more as show goes on .

Thanks for the report. Linn's and Scott's interaction with online groups has to be more than posting links back to their website. They are invisible when there are discussions about Scott and Linn's in online places. I realize some of this is about keeping silent to avoid any criticisms on such topics of validity of catalogue values, etc.

Day two of the show

Personally, saw more exhibits (am about halfway through them now...some absolutely brilliant exhibits at the show with some absolutely eye-popping pieces that oftem come up unexpectedly, like a copy of the Inverted Jenny in a one-frame exhibit on the 24c Jenny issue, that also included a full pane on 100 of the normal stamp!) and did some shopping in the bourse.

Went to two talks - first one was what I thought was going to be a discussion of fakes and forgeries in general but turned out to be a very interesting discussion of fakes and forgeries of US Local Carrier stamps, and learned about how many of the early pioneers in American philately, including J Walter Scott, were involved in forgeries at different points in their career!

The other talk I went to was the town hall with the Stamp department manager of ebay. I was expecting Daniel before the lions but for the most part it wasn't merely a gripe session from sellers who feel ebay is making it impossible for them to earn a living (there was some of that, to be fair, but it wasn't the dominant theme). Covered a range of issues from ebay fees (may be some changes to fee structure in the pipeline) to ability to watermark images ( ebay doesn't like it) to the impact of the Supremes ruling regarding collecting sales tax on inter-state transactions ( ebay is working with Congress to try and write some laws that will help make it not be too great a hassle on small sellers, including perhaps having a minimum total sales threshold on ebay before having to require sales tax be collected - but that is all with the Lobbyists at the moment)

One interesting nugget from the town hall was when APS Executive Director Scott English spoke about potential increased cooperation between the APS and ebay. ebay is a sponsor of the app being used during the course of Stampshow to remind attendees of various events being held during the course of the show, and English intimated that there may be more collaboration between the APS and ebay in the future, though did not give any details.

Overall I think the ebay representative did a good job, he seemed to be genuinely interested in hearing feedback from the participants and open to ideas on how to make ebay more responsive to both buyers and sellers who use the platform, and was constantly taking notes during the town hall, so hopefully a sign that some of the concerns raised might be addressed in the future.

So a productive day two for me. Two more days - and 700 more frames of exhibits to view!

Thanks for the update I was very interested in hearing about the ebay meeting. It's nice to hear ebay cares about Stamps.

Were any questions asked of ebay regarding why the cartel has operated for years, why the "report it" button is a black hole, why negative feedback is removed, why nothing is ever done about all of the misidentified, misdescribed and out right fakes such as the multitude of trimmed 315's always available etc.? Any plans to clean things up? The APS surely discussed these topics in the interest of protecting budding philatelists that seem to bear the brunt of getting shafted. Looking forward to hearing what happened on that front.

See my comments in the Stamps According to ebay thread, rodgcam.

I was at the show late yesterday afternoon. It appeared to be fairly busy. The USPS castle and the inflatable dragon, plus the costumed characters about definitely add some flair. The Columbus convention center has always worked well as a venue for this show, though there can be some long walking distances.

APS and ATA staff with whom I spoke all appear to be pleased at the attendance and the activity. Looking forward to getting back on the floor in between meetings, viewing some auction lots, seeing some friends, and then exploring with my kids this afternoon and tomorrow!

ebay pulled out of a deal of working with the APS many years ago . It sounded like the APS wanted a $150,000 fee and more control ,but ebay told them where to go and ended the relationship.

Since ebay is the 800lb. Gorilla in the room and the APS came in late to the party ,they [the APS] needs to go in the direction to attract attention right now ,it is a shrinking influence .

Day Three

Spent much of the day continuing to explore the various exhibits at the show. So many amazing exhibits to admire, it's very easy to lose track of time while reading them.

Went to two talks. One was a very interesting lecture about the 1893 Hawaii Provisional Govt overprint stamps. Very well presented, as have been pretty much all of the talks that have been held during the show. It's a bit of a shame thought that the vast majority of attendees tend to ignore the talks (and often the exhibits) and stick mainly to the bourse. One can learn so much about the various corners and off the beaten track areas of the hobby at a show like Stampshow.

The other talk I went to was something completely different. It was a talk by Graham Beck, the creator of a Youtube channel called "Exploring Stamps," about how digital media can help to introduce people to the hobby.

Link to his video channel here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk...UPIGb5rPOGyA

His talk focused mainly on what inspired him to create the youtube videos and the challenges he has faced creating his videos. He was very engaging, and his sense of quirky humor is definitely a reason why his videos have actually started to gain a following. And he is getting some results. He has over 2200 subscribers to his channel, and the vast majority of his viewers are between 18 and 55 - the exact target audience that organizations such as the APS are trying to engage with.

One takeaway I got from his talk was how vitally important it is to use the various forms of social media to not only connect with younger collectors online (there are quite large numbers of stamp collectors in the 25-45 age range on both twitter and instagram, for example, and for the slightly older 35-55 demographic Facebook is also quite active, though less so for the Millenial generation (who see it as their parent's app for social media, not their own).

At the Linn's talk the other day one point was raised that there was a lack of good introductory videos on Youtube for stamp collecting. Youtube is in many ways the "go to" place for people looking for how to advice at the first instance. Exploring Stamps does have some Collecting 101 videos, and I suggested to Graham that he should do some more as this was something that had come up in a previous talk here at the show.

The most exciting thing about this talk though was the fact that Graham had been invited to speak by the organizers of the show in the first place. The APS I think really does realize that social media is going to the be the medium by which to try and gain new people to the hobby in general and to the organized hobby in particular. The fact that the APS, Scott and Linn's have several key people in their organizations who are in the late-30s to mid-50s demographic also I think gives the "pillars" of the hobby here in the USA people who do have an understanding of social media and can help in this era of transition in the hobby as the Baby Boomer generation slowly fade from the scene. The hobby in 20 years is definitely NOT going to the be hobby of today and certainly not the hobby of 20 years ago, and I actually feel pretty confident that the leaders of the hobby here in the USA have a good understanding of the tools that will be needed to meet that change.

One more day of philatelic fun to go....then back to reality for me as I have to be back at work at 5AM Monday morning!

Many thanks again for your very informative posts DJ!

Great information. Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to provide these lengthy reports!

DJCMHOH

Thanks for the daily reports. I subscribe to Graham's youtube channel. Graham can do what he does without the need for a board, staff, technology committee, soiree funding, etc. The APS board is not a social media kind of group. One board member made a post on another stamp forum by introducing himself and has not been back since.

You did hit on another topic and that is seminars and the value of education. I suspect that why seminars are under appreciated is because they can be hit or miss (some end up being nothing more than an informal chat - been to more than one of those). A lot depends on just volunteerism so not planned. The agenda for these are not revealed that far in advance of the show and descriptions are brief except for the on the road courses. If one does not regularly go to shows and does not live local, it can take advance planning and money (transportation, lodging, food, etc). You are asking working people to spend $300 to $500 and miss work for something you may or may not like when you can buy stamps online.

If you monitor APS's Facebook, you do not see as much promotion that could be done for the show Yes, I am sure they are busy but posting pics does not take that much time and doubt you will see much after the event. For supposedly the premier event they could do a lot more and that is just not on Facebook to reach that younger crowd.