I got gipped out of Nassau Street. This movie was made one year before I was born, and having received my first stamp album when I was 10 years old, by the time I became a full-fledged addict at the age of 12, the same age when I might have been allowed to take the subway south to Nassau Street from where we stayed in midtown, we up and moved to London for six years. By the time we returned to New York in 1974, it was time for college and other pursuits. When I got back into the hobby, Nassau Street had sadly become a legend fortunately preserved by movies such as this. Of course, while I was in London, I did get to experience, amongst other philatelic strongholds, The Strand...
Amazing to think that there were 12 million collectors in the US alone at one time. That was probably 5% of the entire population! I doubt if there are even one tenth that number today. Still, it gratifies me to think that some of the scarce items I have of which there might be only a few thousand can be owned by just a fraction of the total number of collectors that still remain
WADDSBADDS ----Nice comparison , but let me put the shoe on the other foot , back in the 1950's only a few people could spend $100.00 a year on stamps ,but today $1,000 a month is not that unusual .
We still have Nassau Street today ,it is alive and well and buying and selling is now 24/7 365 days a year ,no subway needed . The money flowing is one hundred times greater with 1/10 the people collecting ,it is called ebay .
Can you image if there were 1,000,000 buyers of those 12 million former collectors in the stamp section of ebay .
I doubt she's putting a just-watermarked and still wet stamp directly into her album. It's a film. Just because something happens next does not mean it happened immediately after the previous scene. Films are edited, you know.
As for handling stamps with your hands, most collectors do that to some extent. Look at the few famous photos of FDR with his collection. Do you see him ever use stamp tongs? It's bare fingers. No harm will result if you wash your hands before you work on your collection. But, yes, stamp tongs are preferable -- and easy to use.
As for Nassau Street, I had the opportunity in the early 60s to take the subway down there and wander in and out of a few stamp stores. I was a bit too young, and much too poor, to benefit much from the visits, unfortunately. By the time I was older and had a few dollars to my name, most of the stamp shops had either moved to the suburbs or closed up. So that was the tail end of Nassau St. as a stamp market. A bit sad.
The best thing about this film is the ultra-serious, pontifical tone of the narration as if this wasn't a hobby, but a kind of very serious endeavor, an "industry" as they refer to it. This sort of seriousness bothered me as a kid, and it still bothers me now. Lighten up a bit. Today, this kind of narration is laughable. But it's a good historical film nevertheless because it represents both a phase in the hobby -- and a phase in film-making of the old-school variety.
"Today's stamp industry is prospering among the skyscrapers of New York not far from Wall Street where similar investments are being made . . . ." No one said this, but you almost expect them to. It's a hobby.
Excellent. I'm afraid that, unlike some of you, I haven't had a tweezer attachment fitted to my hand - I use them judiciously, rather than constantly. The tone is simply the standard for this sort of short film. It's what I remember from the days of news films, when going to the flicks was a cheap, lengthy experience, rather than an expensive two hours.
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Posted 06/26/2019 10:53 am
