A Proposal To Adapt The Term "Neophilately" Into Our Nomenclature In This Forum

I am deliberately posting this in the eCommerce forum. There is an ongoing discussion regarding the question of whether Amos is in touch with current trends in philately.

More and more, it is apparent to many of us here that philately is becoming a virtual hobby. For many younger collectors, the internet may be the most enticing way to engage in the hobby.

As such, I am making the proposal that the term "Neophilately" be adapted as a term meant to describe the new age of our hobby. Collectors participating primarily through the internet should, I propose, but called "Neophilatelists."

Neophilately is a very different sport than philately. Neophilatelists don't attend stamp shows, don't read Linn's, don't belong to the APS, and don't subscribe to many of the traditional conventions associated with philately.

To better position it, what else would you add to the definition of Neophilately?

With respect, I don't think such a distinction is meaningful. People are just using - in philately as in all other facets of life - modern technologies and ways of communicating about their interests and hobbies. There's also not a firm divide on this. Historically some stamp collectors have pursued it in "private" (my father & grandfathers among those), whereas currently some collectors - such as myself - are primarily online, but also attend stamp shows/auctions, read stamp publications (both printed/digital), etc.

An analogy that I think is useful - we didn't coin a new term for music-lovers every time people switched their primary mode of appreciating music - from live to radio, to records, to CDs, now to digital streaming. Similarly, we don't call people who love to read "e-readers" or "paper readers" based on how they consume their literature.

Whether some stamp publishers are conversant/prepared for these changes in technology/communication preferences is a great question, and most likely some of them will not survive that transition - as we've seen in many industries.

What one might characterise as neo-philately could be the collection of images of stamps, rather than stamps themselves. After all, I keep interesting pictures from the web in files, rather than purchasing prints or owning original photographs. I wonder whether many people do this with stamps instead of maintaining a physical collection?

Interesting question! I collect the real thing first and foremost, but I do save images of particularly interesting or attractive stamps that I see online, even if they're from places or topics that I don't collect per se. I make a point of saving all the images of postal history written in Volapük that I find on the Web, though I also try to buy the actual items if they're still for sale and within my budget.

"Virtual philately" might be a fitting term for the collecting of stamp image files.

Nothing to do with this, but, for your Esperanto collection, have you read The Confidential Agent?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The...ential_Agent

I detest breaking up people into boxes. We are all philatelists. Who cares how we do it.

Wait, many have not agreed on what philatelist means!!

'
gmot said it well.

A another example, Mr Spielberg seems to be backing-off an effort, attributed to him, to keep a firm line between movies released thru theaters-before-streaming and movies released direct-to-streaming.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I would like to add that everyone participating in SCF is engaging in Neophilately. Rather than attending local stamp clubs, we are all interacting with other collectors online via blogging, selling, buying, etc.

It may not be nice to create categories of people, but hey even in elementary school many of us were placed in classes based on our aptitude. If we all seek to understand the trending and future of our hobby I would argue we have to suspend a certain degree of decorum.

We have a few "Neophilately Experts " here these are people who are concidered experts by a vast group of readers on this chatboard . The never show their own material and they never have the stamps that they are EXPERTS about . Plus I don't think even have reference books about the subject they are EXPERTS about!

They really are experts at finding stuff on the internet and know how to link it here . They get a lot of thank you's and come across as experts .

Years ago when stamp chatrooms started we use to have a different kind of stamp expert ,these were people who can answer questions and like being called "experts" as long as the answer could be found in a stamp catalog . I would call them "CATALOG QUEENS" ,now with the internet ,they can be called "NEOPHILATELIC EXPERTS"

Sorry, I don't really see the point. I submit that the majority of paleophilatelists in days gone by also did not attend shows, read Linn's, belong to the APS, etc.

Stamp stores are gone. Also, stamp shows, stamp clubs, and hard copy stamp publicationss are quickly dying.

The old model is gone, so there is no need to add "Neo".

I fully agree with floortrader.
Frustrating but absolutely true.

Do you mean if someone posts an image of a stamp and asks for information and someone provides information without showing their collections of similar stamps first are people to be mocked and ridiculed?

Neophilately is like the "New Math" of the 1960's. 2+2 still = 4, but it was the New Math.