Where Does Contemporary Philately Go?

Once people collected stamps as a portal to exotic places, and exotic times. The images on the stamps were the collector's interest, reflecting the concept of stamps and beauty at different countries.

Nowadays, from what I read here, new colorful stamps are "not interesting".
The first thing a collector does is turning the stamp over and examining the back. The image became a side effect.
Then, instead of enjoying the beauty of the stamp, he looks for errors and flaws.
Most collectors arrange their stamps according to what Scott or SG say, regardless of series that spread over years (like pro juventute, the British machines, co issues between countries, and so on).
A mint stamp that never served its postal purpose is usually worth more than a canceled one.

How did philately become a spreadsheet of catalog numbers and error worshipping?

I don't think the visual attraction of the hobby has gone anywhere.

But the media, including forums and blogs around, breeds on "something different" - be it errors, flyspecking etc.

It is the "added value" that other sources (catalog listings, new issue press releases) etc. don't serve and provide. For example if you google the Hot Wheels stamps, most of the articles are basically copies of USPS press release. So when/if you read that one article, you've pretty much read them all. So the intensive and benefit of reading further generic articles on same topic is essentially non-existing. Now imagine somebody spotting a mis-rouletted HotWheels stamp, and sharing that with other collectors. It is the kind of content that attracts current readers as it provides new knowledge.

Back in the pre-internet days knowledge upon new issue themes etc. was of limited availability, and as such the visuals and origins of stamps design received and required more publicity. But these days that same information is easily, maybe even excessively available and has very limited value.

So it all comes down to added value. Times they are a changing (and will definitely continue to change)...

-k-

very interesting set of observations you have made.

i can answer for myself.

i dislike new stamps because new/newer stamps (at least in Denmark) were made with one purpose, to skin the collectors.
new stamps picture fauna/flora, famous people and so on. basicly just a print from a photo, and with the modern technology not really difficult to make.

compared to the classic era: a stamp was payment for a service, 1 stamp was printed for this, and new stamps were printed when postal rates changed, inflation hit or similar.
a huge effort was put into making the stamp, the process, the skill of the engraver, the paint and so on - a proud process which I enjoy.

i agree that the backside (unless watermarked) gets too much attention, the MNH/MH/NOGUM debate is stupid, and as such I have recently sold my MNH collection, and turned it into a MH collection, and I don't care if there is gum on the back or not.. this means I have access to much more material, and I can be picky with condition, perfs, center, margins and so on.

i'm most likely the one most guilty in the error and flaw area. that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the beauty of the stamp. I work with stamps professionally so I came across a lot of material. I can afford to be picky, so I firstly go for stamps that are in perfect condition, with a clean cancel and THEN look for flaws and errors.

i don't arrange my stamps according to any catalogue, i've always made my own set ups on blank pages... no preprinted album could ever be specialized enough for me.
but I recoqnize the problem. which is also the reason why many look for errors and flaws:

a steady decline in collectors and the internet has means that every collector has access to pretty much everything and the average collector has more money.
this means (at least in denmark) that you can make a complete catalogue collection in less than a month. quite boring really.

your last observation i've also discussed with many people.. MNH stamps should in theory be worth least of all. here is my priority of stamps most interesting/worth first.

a stamp on a letter. This letter has survived time because the owner (most likely female) has kept it, could be a loveletter or such. but a stamp on a cover tells much more than one off paper. firstly it tells the route it travelled, and at what time in history. there's also the possibility of a famous person, there's interesting postal rates or lille remarks like official duty. side cancels that you wouldn't see on a stamp off paper. Calligraphy and so on... this is by far the most collectable for me.

a cancelled(not philatellicly cancelled) stamp has fullfilled it's purpose, it's paid for a service and went on the journey. collecting various city cancels is also a very interesting niche.

unused hinged classic stamp with no gum. could have been a stamp on a cover that actually never got cancelled, or it could be that the person disliked hinges and took care of this stamp by washing off a hinge that could with time discolor the stamp.

unused hinged classic stamp. this stamp never did it's job, someone bought it, but never used it - but luckily someone thought it interesting enough to place it in a colleciton.

unused never hinged classic stamp. never did it's job, never even made it into a collection because noone found it interesting enough to pull it from the drawer. but there's still the rarity of classic stamps to take into account, and the quality of the work.

used newer stamps with clear usage cancels.

unused hinged/never hinged newer stamps. these stamp also never did it's job, someone bought it, most likely a collector to place it in his album... the most boring stamp there is.

used new stamps with obvious CTO cancels -> trashbin.

You are reading wrong, I believe. From what I see on the 25 active topics list, 4 involve very modern stamps including thematics, 7 involve older stamps. I exclude questions about stamps and other topics. If we break the 178 year history of all stamps at 1970 between very modern and older, older stamps are underrepresented for a group covering 130 years. The break is probably more at about 1990 if one examines the posts in the very modern stamp and postal history threads.


This is needed for analysis here. Do not confuse that and appreciation of the stamp as art.


The albums dictate that, but there are quite a few here who collect free-form and differently from either catalog system. Postal history doesn't follow Scott or SG in lockstep, neither do thematic collectors. To each his own. And it's Machin, the designer's name.


There are many cancels and usages that exceed the value of a mint version of a stamp. Your philatelic experience has proven to be limited by the questions you have asked; do you really have a basis for making this statement? Or are you just basing your viewpoint on the Scott and SG catalogs that you apparently dislike so much? Philately is more than mint vs. used stamps.


This blanket indictment is just not true.

I agree with scb that the error aspect is more something the media spend more time on. They love to highlight something valuable like all the auction reports on stamps I will never own. They want to convey a positive aspect. They do not report on all the other lots going for almost nothing...orders of magnitude below the catalogs they also sell.

The ones on the money side of the hobby tend to whine about value thinking that if prices are not constantly going up the hobby is dying. The traditional dealer model (driving higher prices due to markup wanted by dealers) is being replaced with more amateur dealer/collector to collector model. The prices are adjusting.

Stamps have gone commercial (money grab - why would the US issue a Harry Potter booklet) but that started in the 80's when Disney became prevalent on stamps. Modern US stamps do not really interest me. The need to use stamps is also diminishing so this impacts the postal history. No one is going to collect emails in some album.

Many collectors (not just accumulators) like order so using a catalog to organize makes sense. But, people have options to go it alone and you see it here with all sorts of custom album pages. I like order. Just like using various versions of English here as the primary means of communication. It is not better but catalogs offer some common means of communication. This is important if a catalog is how you define completeness.

Since I like pre-1980 I do not deal much with CTO's but if it fills a spot I do not really care. I do not care much about the backside.

I think you see diversity here and other forums.

Should I be bothered by what another person finds interesting and collects? Should I be bothered if a Disney CTO is what first attracts a young kid to the hobby?

In my opinion the biggest issue in our hobby is education.
Don

Thank you all for sharing your opinions. I really enjoyed reading all that you wrote.
hy brazil expressed what I feel when he wrote "The albums dictate that". Someone else's concept and priorities of order dictate how serious collectors arrange their stamps.
As for the attention for errors, is it so widespread in other hobbies? Does a bibliophile seek books where the pages glued together during printing or a page got folded and was printed that way?
All in all, it was nice to hear from you all how you see your collection. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Everyone has their own reason why they collect .

I collect because it is a escape from all the things going around me in the everyday world . It is a quite time of the day to unwind and relax .

I don't think "the times" have anything to do with what people collect. Most young collectors that I have seen, be it modern day or back in the day, start with collecting stamps based on the picture. Some continue this way in to adulthood and some migrate to other things.

Collecting the backs of stamps, looking through a magnifying glass and flyspecking (looking for errors and other details) comes with gained knowledge and some people don't care to go that route, which is fine.

The point is, flyspecking and looking for errors/varieties has always been a part of the hobby. All you have to do is look at any well-stocked philatelic library and you will see many philatelic books that were written 50, 60, 70 years ago, dedicated to some of these advanced hobby topics.

I don't believe in a mythical time where collectors had somehow "purer" intentions in collecting. People have always varied in their reasons for collecting stamps (or anything). Personally, I like attractive, old mint stamps and don't care much about the state of the gum, errors or varieties. I like things nicely categorized, ordered, and with a sense of completion so filling pages in an high-quality album is important to me.

But my preferences, which are different from everyone's else, don't indicate a trend, and aren't any more valid than anyone else's preferences. I also don't worry about how other people collect - why would I, since it doesn't negatively affect me, or my enjoyment of my stamp collecting?

So long as people enjoy how they personally pursue their hobby - which by definition, is an enjoyable diversion - great for them.

.
Once upon a time, I wrenched my back trying to button a shirt.

I soon realized that, of all people, Lord & Taylor had sold me a shirt with two left sleeves.

I thought (and still do) that this was one of the coolest things that had ever happened to me.

I would tell everyone I met that I owned a One Thousand Dollar Shirt because, if I ever needed U$D 1000, I could just stand outside a Lord & Taylor store and show incoming shoppers that shirt ... until the store manager came out and bought it from me.

So the fascination with EFOs is easy to understand. We live in an age of reliable serial production ... how could the deviations not be of interest?

One of our colleagues - who is currently taking a break from SCF, but tells me that he will soon return - once remarked that the album-and-catalog model of stamp collecting acted as a filter, so that the hobby become populated by people who want to look up stamps in catalogs so that they know where to put them in albums.

Anyone entering our little hobby was quickly exposed to that album-and-catalog model, as well as new issues services, first day cover services, etc, all of whom had a revenue stream.

Revenue that could pay for advertising.

Advertising that could recruit new hobbyists to that way of collecting.

So the hobby came to be the way it is, with many of us having been Twelve Years a Slave to Scott ... and its annual supplements.

Q/ How was the "collect what you like, the way you like" crowd going to be heard?

Lastly, news flash, mint stamps are generally priced higher than used stamps because the guy selling you that stamp (dealer, collector, sinner, or saint) had to pay more for the mint stamp.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Figured this post would generate alot of replies. So just a few more thoughts:




They still do...




People are simply not writing about modern issues. Personally, I do not collect 'stickers' - which is all the US issues these days. The beautiful engraved stamps are a distant memory - but the true gems of our hobby...




It didn't.

You shouldn't generalize the entire hobby by what folks like to write about.

I love US Scott #855. Gorgeous stamp. Combines my 2 favorite hobbies. But a common stamp that everyone owns & has been discussed more than anyone cares to know about it. If I happened to find a copy with a player w/2 left arms - (or two left sleeves?!) - I would certainly show it off by writing about it!!

Ikeypikey -

If you had 2 inverted left sleeves, I'd be impressed.

2 normal left sleeves is just an efo...

:)

Stamps as exotic portal has always been a main draw to go with perceived money value.

The catalogs need to become public knowledge, same as that the internet is clearly a public utility. All variations must become common, free knowledge. It's called the laws of stamp physics. Transactions are based on a shared agreement of how items in decent condition should appear. Fair deals can't be made without basic numbers to crunch.

The problem isn't catalogs. It's that they are privatised. Even if money is factored out, there will always be trading. Folks need to know what they've got. And money is involved. We have a right to the info.

I'm thinking about money but not thinking about money? It's tough to explain. I do appreciate the beauty and aesthetics of it.

I like the part about mint with original gum, unused and authentic cancels. Perhaps cancelled stamps get a raw deal, but come on, the mint stamp is pristine territory. One can work the math around based on light to heavy hinge marks, year. I mean, when there is a hinge mark on a stamp from 1960, that is called damage.

My main gripe is with the importance given on centering. It seems excessive.

Ikey, I just always love your humor...

One question though re:authenticity..
Did you get a cert for your shirt?

Enjoyed this one, Ray

A really nicely centered stamp does pop out from the page. For example, this 2 cent I just found in a mixed lot of stamps:



But I do agree that the prices on this kind of stuff has moved it out of reach of most of us.I think it is far more common than the prices suggest. Much of it sits in collections such as mine, not part of PSE's census.