Do You Get Bored With Stamp Collecting?

I got into it for about two years, and learned a lot from this forum (thank you one and all). However, I just ran out of gas with it. I maintain two U.S. collections in parallel - one mint, one used. Each includes a complete set of Zepps. There's still a ways to go, but... *yawn.* I get more psyched about my OTHER expensive hobby - woodworking. How do you maintain your philatelic fire?

I have been at it for many decades now and have put it aside for long and short periods of time either out of necessity or choice. Sooner or later though it always pulls me back in. Sometimes you need to take a break. For me change is often necessary. I don't want it to feel like a job and I can tend to end up feeling like that. For a long time my thing was large lots and whenever a new bunch of material arrived I would be excited and dive in. Sooner or later though I put pressure on myself to work on it when I really did not want to. The thrill started to disappear. If you start to lose the spark step back for awhile instead of just bailing out.

One thing that frustrated me is the desire for completion that I come to realize can never practically be accomplished. I got to a point in my US where I acknowledged I would not complete those sets that require large to huge sums of money. Few people have Bill Gross resources and if "finishing" something is important to you it can be frustrating. I learned to take on specialty areas instead that I could complete or Countries that were doable. When you do finish it is still a question of what is next.

Finally, it is OK to move on if the live affair is over. People have crushes and flings. Others fall deeply in love and stay with "the one". To each their own.

PS: I hope that you stay involved with stamps but woodworking is not such a bad thing!

@BFRomeos: I've collected continuously since age 10 in 1960, with no breaks for university or otherwise. I do take periodic breaks while keeping up with the literature that comes in, either via paper or online.

Roger: I understand your feelings about completion. I have a "near complete" collection of Canada major Scott numbers through 1973. Of course, I won't complete it due to #3 and several others. I'd have to look up the Scott number, but only three copies of one of the earlies have been found.

I'm very close to completing several Portuguese colonial collections (Angola, Timor) and have completes of most of the smaller district major numbers (examples: Angra, Funchal, Ponta Delgada, Horta, Tete, Quelimane, Kionga). Macau, couple others, I can get close. Portuguese India? Collection is good, but many of the earlies can't even be found, let alone me having the money to buy. Steve

I think acquiring 2 sets of Zepps within two years of starting is too fast paced. For any hobby doing too much too soon will lead to burnout. Need to keep something to look forward to, and pace yourself for the long term. Think about where you want your collection to be in 10 years or 20 years and what you have to do each year to achieve that.

I have been collecting for over 60 years, and I have never been bored. There is so much to learn, so many areas to explore just for the knowledge and the stories, even if you never collect that specific area. I can't imagine ever being bored. I CAN imagine passing on before I see everything that I want to see, however. Alas.

I started with a Minkus World one volume stamp album in 1958. Gave up on stamps in the late 1970's seeing too many dealer schenagians but stayed full time ever since in postal history. Still looking for a U.S. number one on cover from my home town.

One way I keep my 53-year collection interesting and fresh is to collect another country's issues. I change emphasis on collecting from various countries all the time. As a result, I have 125+ different collections going with different levels of specialization at all times.

I'm with revcollector. Even when my life situation changed and I moved to a self-imposed buying moratorium I found ways to keep me engaged and learn new things. And as I slowly regained confidence that I would be around a while longer, the hobby afford me opportunities to ramp back up. For example, collecting HPO covers, starting a smallest Post Office collection, and organizing decades of cut squares were all interesting ways to slowly get back into the hobby and learn more.

No need to do things by a catalog, album or what everyone else is collecting. Building just another mid-range Scott National US collection can crush many people's motivation. Think outside mainstream, think about what you enjoy.
Don

I started collecting at about age 8 which means I've been collecting pretty much continuously for 64 years. Yikes! As a kid I tried collecting all sorts of things due to my collectors' instinct. That included rocks & minerals, coins, baseball cards, and other things. But only stamps stayed with me, probably due to their combination of historical connections, artistry, the pleasure of organizing things, the research involved, and perhaps other factors, as well, which the others did not have. That's still the case today.

I've never been even a little bored with collecting stamps. Maybe it's because I collect the world (pretty much) and so in my mind I connect world events and world history with stamps. I did take a long break from stamps when I went to college a looong time ago, but I went back to my collection during the summers, so I never gave it up. After college, in my poverty years, I had to slow down on collecting since I couldn't really afford it. Groceries and gas for the car came first. But I was never bored by stamps. I just backed off a little.

From time to time I get interested in other things and so I slow down a little on my stamps, maybe taking a short break for awhile, not working on an album for a few weeks but thinking about it with no pressure involved. But I always come back. I'd suggest if you're not interested in your collection, you not feel any obligation at all to attend to it. Just leave it alone for awhile. No harm in that. It's just a hobby. If you see it as an obligation you're much more likely to resent it. So much of life is obligatory your hobby should never be like that. I remember reading that FDR used to spend about an hour nearly every evening working on his collection in order to wind down after working on all the nations's problems all day. That's what collecting should be like, I think, a refuge, something private and reassuring.

I am reading the entries here and it is eye-opening (I was going to say I was surprised/shocked, but realized that I really wasn't at all) how many have collected 60+ years. I am a relative newbie - I have 'only' been collecting 50 years or so, since I was 8 or 9. Hobbies are funny - you don't HAVE to do them all the time, for the most part. You do them at YOUR leisure, at YOUR comfort level, and devote YOUR level of finances to them. Their are no wrong answers, unless you force yourself beyond your comfort level.

I am a hobby guy. My first love is stamp collecting, but I also do genealogy, model railroading, and astronomy/astrophotography. Some require lots of equipment, some lots of space. Over the years, I have definitely taken breaks from stamp collecting (and the others). I have NEVER forgotten about it though. I always get back to it. What usually causes these breaks is increased interest in another hobby. Whenever I felt financially 'short', I could still do stamp collecting - as in life, lots of money is nice, but not a requirement. My advice? Do what you want when it comes to hobbies. If you want a break, take one. If the break turns into a 'drop', then chase whatever is right for you. I'll tell you - I am AMAZED at how many people I meet in everyday life that don't have any hobbies at all. So... even not having a hobby at all seems to also be 'normal'.

I've been collecting, in general,for nearly 45 years now. Started off with stamps aged 8 or so. At some point moved on to coins and then banknotes, followed by phonecards before returning to stamp collecting. Initially I concentrated on completing a Republic of Cyprus collection before gradually working my way back to the British period. This ground to a halt once the affordable stamps had been safely tucked in the album, swooshed over to Republic of Cyprus postal history before moving on to British Commonwealth 1938-1960 definitive issues in used condition. Because I have a penchant of collecting a couple of countries at a time for 'completion's sake - I collect shade and perf varieties too, I decided to side-track myself and slowly start a WW collection using the collection I inherited from my father as a stepping stone when I couldn't complete the Commonwealth group I was working on. This, coupled with creating my own album pages and reading up on every new country that I start to collect tends to keep my interest from waning. I also keep bouncing around from one country collection to another and I have a couple of, according to catalogue prices, fairly common/cheap pieces that I have been looking for for well over 10 years now which keeps me scouring new listings in the hope that I will eventually complete a few more Commonwealth definitive series.

My stamps do not moan and grone, fuss, I never get bored with my stamps because they are not: Objecting, bad-tempered, cantankerous, crabby, cranky, grouchy, grumbling, grumpy, ill-tempered, irritable, petulant, protesting, snappish, snappy, testy, whining, accusing, bellyaching, bewailing, charging, deploring, disapproving, discontented, dissenting, fretting, lamenting, moaning, mourning, murmuring, regretting, repining, weeping, critical, malcontent, peevish, querulous, resentful, cross, touchy, irascible, crabbed, ratty crotchety, huffy, tetchy, fractious, choleric, waspish, ill-natured, crusty, surly, snarky, pettish, splenetic, fretful,l eggy ,curmudgeonly, soreheaded, prickly, ill-humored,
Miffy, sulky, sour, moody, ill-humored, sullen, puckish, short-tempered, churlish, snaky, perverse, disagreeable, edgy, scratchy, peppery, whingy, bilious, dyspeptic, bitter, whingeing, impatient, sorehead, fiery, captious, quick-tempered, miserable, on edge, out of sorts, snippy, snippety, stuffy, like a bear, with a sore head, raspy, morose, shirty, in a bad mood, stroppy, mean, carping, ornery, acrimonious, fussy, uptight, out of temper, dissatisfied, fault-finding, difficult, cynical, tart, spiteful, shrewish, angry, harsh, disgruntled, whiny, tough, bearish, trying, brusque, waspy, grousing, acrid, thin-skinned, awkward, hot-tempered, tense, short-fused, sharp-tongued, out of humor, mumpish, on a short fuse, unhappy, restive, contrary, restless, huffish, salty, scrappy, glum, curt, unsociable, gruff, quarrelsome, pouty, misanthropic, truculent, obstinate, pertinacious, displeased, crybaby, ungracious, snarling, in a mood, cross-grained, pouting, gloomy, having got out of bed on the wrong side, dour, nasty-tempered, griping, acid, growling, venomous, childish, out-of-sorts, sharp, vindictive, nasty, ugly, saturnine, blunt, cussed chuffy, quibbling, irked, embittered, arsey, uneasy, grudging, bad, jaundiced, uncongenial, wicked, worried, overwrought, uncomfortable, distraught, unruly, recalcitrant, ungenerous, refractory, sarcastic, unfriendly, hostile, anxious, stressed, fidgety, vitriolic, sharp-tempered, spunky, acerbic, acute, indomitable, uncompliant, indocile, wild, worked up, ill at ease, upset, wrought up, distressed, unsettled, agitated, catty, nagging, wreck, rattled, faultfinding, over-strung, unquiet, twitchy, nervous, temperamental, scolding, rancorous, litigious, snide ,criticizing, argumentative, volatile, sensitive, feisty, bristly, ireful, contentious, hotheaded, oversensitive, aggressive, backbiting, cattish, hypercritical, uncooperative, exasperated ,annoyed ,iracund, brooding iracundulous, disputatious, criticizing, out of humor, hot under the collar, malicious, vinegary, short, foul-tempered, hasty, malignant, hot-blooded, sore, filthy, obstreperous, easily offended, plaintive, censorious, grumbly, negative, crying, bemoaning, whimpering, wailing, hard to please, huffy, irascible, excitable, piqued, vexed, irritated, peeved, jumpy, put out, unpleasant, combative, confrontational, riled, belligerent, bellicose, hot-headed, pugnacious, highly strung, glowering, furious, wrathful, miffed, aggravated, nervy, antagonistic, fed up, neurotic, rude, scowling, militant, irate, hacked off, teed off, mopey, emotional, aggrieved, indignant,t ticked off, jittery, in a huff, incensed, nettled, infuriated, not best, pleased, high-strung, hypersensitive, wired, frowning, easily upset, vex, abrupt, unhelpful, snuffy, offended, cheesed off, peed off, apprehensive, defiant, fierce, browned off, uncivil, galled, ruffled, bothered, moping, warlike, threatening, mad, vicious, disturbed, impolite, agonistic, disobliging, discordant, insecure, provoked, assaultive, skittish, enraged, troubled, antsy, crook, unresponsive, uncommunicative, harassed, malevolent, in a temper, brassed off, wound up, violent, keyed up, foaming at the mouth, bent out of shape, discourteous, unkind, thrawn, hysterical, obstructive, boorish, flustered, humorless, perturbed, bolshie, unmannerly, angered, joyless, mean-spirited, unsmiling, gladiatorial, dithery, queasy, balky, impulsive, queasy, disputative, sourpussed, unstable, unpredictable, melodramatic, brawly, sulking, explosive, wrath, mercurial, in high dudgeon, stressy, inhospitable, headstrong, hung up, abusive, pigheaded, snarly, contumacious fearful, factious, contrarious, affronted, mopish, inconsiderate, uncharitable, hurt, warring, ropeable, tempestuous, taciturn, wrangling, malign, adrenalized, battling, fighting, overemotional, stubborn, impassioned, unreasonable, bickering, inflammable, maddened, ill-mannered, excited, grim, atrabilious, afraid, dismal, impetuous, scunnered, steamed up, brittle, shaky, oafish, strung out, hinky, goosey, atwitter, aflutter, brawling, strung up, hard-nosed, intractable, unaccommodating, troublesome, overcritical, willful, willful, in a lather, tiresome, on the warpath, fuming, demanding, ready, for a fight, cheerless, shaken, raving, obdurate, unmanageable, a bundle of nerves, like a cat on a hot tin roof, in bad mood, hard to handle, prima donna-ish, finicky, destructive, loudmouthed, inimical, adversarial, whingey, offensive, stung mighty, antipathetic, responsive, choked, brief, scornful, foul, bad-humored, disrespectful, quick, uncontrollable, vinegarish, tempersome, envenomed, unsympathetic, vehemen, forceful, ignoble, contemptible, goaded. like a bear. Stewed. Insulted. Zowerswopped. Terse. Rotten. apt to fly off the handle. Perturbable. Dicey. Hazardous. Unsafe. Cruel. Somber, disaffected, hurtful, hateful, perversely irritable, unlikable, grizzly, naysaying, chafed, lugubrious, agitable, broody, dejected, viperous, eristic, unindulgent, wired up, timorous, blue wounded, mopy, kittle spooked. Timid. Pessimistic. Sober, aloof, dark, bundle of nerves, disappointed, discontent, with a long face, defensive, frustrated, harried, panicky, weak, withdrawn, depressed, livid, apoplectic, intense, stormy, reactive, prim, stilted, febrile, hassled, paranoid, crabbing, uncontent, kicking, ungratified, malcontented, kvetching, steamed, loutish, having short fuse, hot under collar concerned, taut, scared, dramatic, snitty, evil-minded, conservative, wroth, hesitant, angerfu,l ranting, psyched up, frenzied, cold, convulsed, ferocious, aerated, rebellious, rough, in a funk, in the sulks, in a strop, down in the mouth, having a fit of the sulks, frantic, steamed-up, hot-tempered, inflamed, strained, frightened, discomposed, easily agitated, easily frightened, out of joint, bad tempered, vulgar, uncouth, on tenterhooks, pushy, alarmed, over-emotional, hopping mad, have a bone to pick, having a chip on one's shoulder, self-assertive, ready to fight, itching to fight, all shook up, self-conscious, fraught, unrestful, embarrassed, discomfited, umbrageous, hyper-sensitive, up in arms, on pins and needles, ungentlemanly, ill-bred, easily hurt, easily affected, dismayed, tormented, anguished, perplexed, wrung, disquieted, suspicious, in turmoil, palpitant, all nerves,like a fish out of wate,r on the qui vive, in a bate, fit to be tied, annoying, exasperating, wriggly, squirmy, uncompromising, like a cat on hot bricks, classless, unchivalrous, cloddish, clownish, controversial polemical, polemic, dissentious, wiggly, overbearing, unrelenting, unamenable, ructious, arguesome, ignorant, hardheaded, strong-minded, hard-line, bull-headed, steadfast, choosy, resolute, immovable, picky, opinionated, delicate, dogmatic, intransigent, oppressive, unflinching, wrong-headed, particular, fastidious, over-particular, dictatorial, importunate, pitiless, strict, single-minded, set in one's ways, rigid, inflexible, finical, invidious, fiendish, uppity, tyrannical, stiff-necked, hard to satisfy, irritating, inexorable, unyielding, opinionative, unbending, perfectionist, turbulent, vexing, clodhopping, crude bad-mannered, miserly, unpolished, rustic, lowbred, uncultured, crass, uncivilized, unneighborly, coarse, vexatious, renitent, pervicacious, all wound up, cramped, complex, bulky, discommodious, incommodious, disparaging, deprecating, difficult to handle, pedantic, niggling, pettifogging, nit-picking, have chip on shoulder, hair-splitting, nitpicking, judgemental, judgmental, rejective, pernickety, pass-remarkable, severe nitpicky, thorny, exceptive, exacting, unjust, unfair, hairsplitting, very critical, petty trivial, cavillous, tricky, sassy and the don't talk back!

My wife has noticed that "stamp collecting seems like 10 different hobbies" because I do vary different things with very different tools depending on what I'm working on.

I spent most of 2019 on the US Liberty Series: Wet vs. Dry, marginal markings, paper types, luminescence, etc... That was all new to me.

Last year I worked on WWII France. That was mostly a history lesson with nothing really technical to do at all.

I was thinking WWII Italy next, but an AMG article caught my eye last month. So now I'm working an AM Post collection. I have been putting that stuff in a box for years thinking I would someday sort it all out. Again, an entirely new thing for me, and I'm learning all kinds of stuff. Spending some serious time with my micrometer, and looking for plate flaws with a video microscope. Squinting at 14-14.75 compound perfs that need to be measured to the nearest 10th. It's a completely different hobby compared to what I did last year.

While working on the AM Post stuff I have taken notice of the Italian Bari Wolf issue, and all the crazy varieties produced right after WWII. This single stamp may well be my next focus. I've done that before. I have 7 album pages devoted to the Hammarskjöld invert -- which is far more interesting than Scott gives it credit for. I have 5 pages devoted to US Scott 1501 (Electronics).

So. Yea. My wife was right. She pretty much always is right. Stamp Collecting really is 10 different hobbies.

I do not get bored with stamp collecting. It's my hobby, passion, and vice. I do enjoy woodworking and cycling, but they never get in the way of stamps.

For the last 13 years or so, I've been pretty hardcore in my collecting. My U.S. collection has grown from 2 Lighthouse Grande binders in 2008 to 33 Grande binders, 7 Lighthouse FDC binders, and 18 2-post brown binders ("Big Brown International" with "Vintage Reproduction" pages).

I design and print my own pages, so this keeps me in the Scott Catalogue every time I expand my collection and need to add more pages. It's interesting to see all of the varieties of each issue that I never knew existed.

I find that there are so many interesting varieties and so many stamps to add to my collection. Sometimes, I add an expensive stamp to my collection. For example, I just purchased a Scott C14 ($1.30 brown Zeppelin) for my collection which overjoyed me as I only have one more Zeppelin stamp to acquire. At other times, I'm happy to get a handful of inexpensive definitive or commemorative or plate number coil (PNC) stamps to fill the empty spaces in my albums.

My stamp collection has its own website, which I update every time I receive new stamps. As a professional software engineer, I also like to update the technology on the backend of the website to keep it current, fast, and easy-to-use.

I've taken on the roles of webmaster and journal editor for a stamp club, which keeps me busy doing more stamp-related work that I love. I'm currently in the process of writing a book on PNC First Day Covers (FDCs) as I've specialized in them for many years. The last time that a book was published covering PNC FDCs was the Scott/Mellone Catalogue in 2009, so it's time for an update.

Bored with stamp collecting? Definitely not bored.


Scott

I've been collecting stamps for about 50 years (I'm 61 right now) without never actually stopping, althought there have been times when I've leaned towards one of the differents aspects of the hobby.
For some years, I was very active on the organisative/social side of philately, being member of a number of associations and even of the board of Catalan Philately and jury up to national level. I also wrote many articles on local magazines.
Since about 7 years ago, I droppped those and,now, I'm only member of a club. No organisation duties.
As my interest is quite varied, covering used stamps from most of Western-Central Europe (except for France, Italy, Portugal & Spain), I keep on swapping my activity depending on the material availability.
For many years, I've focused on Catalan cinderellas. Last two years I was very active on Switzerland and Sweden. Then, Greenland.Yesterday, I was able to buy two dozens of pre-1950 Dutch stamps. Thus,pushing a long-neglected collection...
Bored?

I don't think I have ever been bored As a worldwide collector if I get tired of looking at watermarks for a country I simply switch to another

I do spend less time on stamps during gardening season

Dianne