Crypto Stamp - A Postage Stamp Revolution

Nice one! :-)

Don

To each his (or her) own. These make me wonder why such a thing is needed.

Since I primarily focus on stamps up to 1973, I already have plenty of gimmicky stuff available with all the CTOs that were being produced. I was looking through a box of mixed packets last night and found one full of Disney stamps.

Dale

Well, commemoratives aren't needed, air-mail stamps aren't needed, most fiscal stamps aren't needed. Innovation designed to take the stamp collector's money goes back 130 years.

I think I will stick with the ones I pay cash and use a credit card to buy. Not some uni- CONN stamps. Can someone tell me what post office in this world would accept those as payment for the mailing of anything? Again uni- corny stamps. Just my opinion.

If stamps were based on what was required for use, then only the country, denomination and maybe type if distinct (e.g. postage due) are needed. In black & white showing the number on a blank background. But then stamp collection would be pretty dull...

On topic, this crypto-stamp promotion does seem pretty goofy, but so do lots of things to me :)

I feel very uncomfortable. I came here with excitement for a really cool stamp as a holographic stamp collector and it doesn't feel good to be here...

Don't feel bad Martin - you're welcome to be here & we're happy to have you. Everyone here collects what they want & everyone collects something different.

If the USPS had issued these stamps, many of our members would've rushed to buy them & would've been incensed if they sold out in such a short time. They'd be ranting on for pages & pages about the money-grabbing USPS & insensitivity to collectors. The fact that these were issued by Austria - and off the radar for most US collectors - is one possible reason the reaction is muted.

Start a thread & show some of your holographic stamps. You'll find lots of like-minded collectors who appreciate them.

As for the crypto stamps - certainly a novel idea & seemingly a very successful one. At least for the Austrian Post and the ebay sellers now trying to cash in on their idea! Whether it becomes a 'revolution' or not remains to be seen...

Um, the Austrian post office?!?

This is like saying you just moved into a new neighborhood, introduced yourself by going door-to-door promoting a time share, and then got the feeling that you were not welcome.

The forum has a 'Introduce Yourself Here' section for a reason. Your first lengthy post heavily promoted something yet you failed to mention that you own some of them. I posted a very clear indication of the slippery slope that you were on.

The solution here was simple, introduced yourself before starting a promotion of something. Contribute to the community for a while, allowing the community to get to know you and allowing you to get to know the community.

Nothing wrong with being excited about something, nothing wrong with collecting whatever you want.

The community is leery of this kind of entry with just cause; we have "been here, done that". In the past we have had a number of people who enter the community with an agenda and an 'infomercial' to promote something. The forum does not exist to support folks who only want to use it for personal gain; this is why we do not allow new members to sell/buy, use messaging system, post drive by links, etc.

There is still time to turn this around, simply move on and start contributing in other threads (same advice I gave in my first post).
Don

I'm with Michael - I didn't have this reaction to the posts.

I think that Austria has been at the forefront of introducing stamps made form alternative materials - gold leaf, porcelain, cloth etc. so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they would delve into something 'alternative' such as crypto stamps. Although I can get totally behind the holographic aspect (have been considering a thematic collection of sorts) the very notion of crypto-curency is off-putting. Having serious issues with the introduction of the Euro (European collections end where the EURO is introduced in each respective country),I would hardly make an effort to add any crypto stamps to my collection.

Morning Martin and all,

Welcome to the community. Yep, most of us are gun shy to the point we can get too cynical too fast. By age many of us are "classics" ourselves but we welcome folks interested in more modern material issued after 1900.

As a postal history collector I would like to see some commercial clearly non philatelic mail franked with these stamps.

Now for my long standing opinion. There are postage stamps, etc. and then there are "postal labels". The latter are issued for the economic gain of the postal administration or promotors or manufacturers of the item rather than wide spread sales and postal use within it home country.

CTO, CRYPTO, etc. are collectable as such. You can please some of the people some of the time, etc. Enjoy the hobby.

Russ

Whether this is seen as a hype or not does not matter. As you can see people spend the money:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Crypto-Stam...AOSwmF1dDH8n

https://www.ebay.de/itm/CRYPTO-STAM...AOSwGjRdCpnp

Winners are those who got it from the post for 6.90 Euro a piece...

Whether this is hype does matter in a philatelic forum; hype is not productive in a community which strives to help hobbyists. This community is not about Snake Oil; nor is it about playing lotto.
Don