Stamp Collecting Is Now 3 Seperate Hobbies

To Don's point, I do consider the trip to a large stamp show as a relaxing event providing an opporunity to immerse in philatelics for en entire day. The excitement of making finds and reconnecting with dealers I know is worth much more to me than the gas spent.

Possibly 2 differing scenarios.

If I am going to a stamp show in Perth (450Km round trip) 5hrs + behind the wheel.
There is involved (for me) lots of organisation.

Stamp show address and times, the widget for the mower from Bloggs, the USB hub from Pcomputers, check rangehoods from Betta, Plants from Bunnings etc & etc ad nauseum.
Then there is the organisation of the trip, into the sat nav etc.

The city has the choice I don't have here.

Going on holiday is vastly different.

"In my opinion if there was a feasible market niche for the 'common-but-scarce' stamps/covers it would be filled. Obviously this topic is not new nor unique; it is not like no one has ever considered trying to fill this niche. If the material is truly scarce and there is demand, than the marketplace would certainly react (with increased values and/or increased attention). So one of two things must be true; either the material is not truly scare or the demand is not large enough to impact the values."

For popular countries, the market will be more likely to figure out what is harder to find. One think to consider is that worldwide collectors have a different view of things than someone who specializes in one or a few countries. They are chasing a significantly larger number of stamps They aren't going to have the same focus on a particular missing stamp that a specialist would have, and thus their demand is softer.

"It is not clear to me that reducing this to dollars and cents is what it is all about"

It should not be ALL about dollars and cents, but most of us do not have the money or time to ignore those factors either. It's a combination, and we all value the different aspects differently. Highly value the thrill of the hunt? Then pass on the $2 priced "25c" stamp. Value filling the space and want to move on to hunting for something else that you think might be easier to find? Then perhaps $2 is reasonable.

I would imagine that this could only be done with world wide. Hard to imagine it could be sustainable with just US, or just Canada, or Just GB, etc. And it woud take a HUGE stock to pull it off.

EYEONWALL------guess your right about the "feasible market niche " , believe it is safe to say ,that it may of worked years ago when the goals of collectors was to fill the page in the album and the Scott's Internationals or Scott Speciality series were the most popular . Then selling low price hard to get stamps was a feasible market,today that market is much smaller .

Maybe the 3 aspects are is acquiring, holding, and disposing

In my opinion the three aspects, which have been in place since the 1880s, are;
- Hobbyists
- Commercial (dealers, supply manufacturers, distribution)
- Publishing (press, catalogs, albums)

These have never changed although the world around the hobby has seen change. Outside change, such as the advent of the internet, obviously has impacted all the three aspects. For example, there has always been philatelic publishing but the media is slowly transitioning from paper to digital. And just as obviously the internet has changed the commercial aspect of philately. And as hobbyists we now interface largely with the hobby online.
Don