How To Recruit Young People?

Here in the USA, the boy Scouts still have a stamp collecting merit badge, and if you aspire to be an Eagle Scout, it's somethng you'd need to get involved with to some degree. That would be one way in the USA.

Worldwide, here's what I would do: Get involved with your local school. Everyone likes show and tell day, where you can expose your hobby to schoolkids. Schoolkids are too young to know anything about anything, so even tho us older folk know a bit about stamp collecting -- and the history stamps present and whatnot -- they don't.

This is also how stamp collecting clubs get started, especially if a stamp collecting club doesn't exist in your area.

We may be older, but we ain't dead yet.

Here's the other thing: Even if they're seriously into stamp collecting, it takes money to build a colection, and kids don't have money. But still, the idea is to get them interested into to IDEA of stamp collecting, and the history it represents, SO-- what,you may want to do is interest them in the artistry of stamps that can he soaked off envelopes and distributed. You could put out a need for those in your favorite forum. Heck, the other day, someone sent me a shipment using a good $6 in USA stamps and old $2 postcards. The package was full of them both back and front, and the stamp artistry of those old stamps was awesome.

Things like this might get kids interested, especially in this day and age where all kids know is e-mail.I know I would.

So that would be my suggestion if I was in your place.

@ecmorgan:As a dad myself, you bring up good points. Collecting WITH your kids is the main thing. Getting a batch of canceled USA of Euro stamps to dig up on the artistry/history is how this hobby survives, but mainly, it's how we build relationships with our kids.

That is a clever usage of the 2 cent Franklin postal cards!

(I would imagine a lot of us have dozens of those things gathering dust in our stamp rooms...)

John

STTScott I think you are absolutely correct. Our children learn what we live. If one thinks that our children only get what we want them to, guess again. Relationships, whether in our families, or with vendors, or with whatever .....is what's important. Remember, I always tell myself, it's the journey that matters.
Good post STTScott.... Thank you

Thanks to everyone for the kind and constructive words. I've gotten mailed envelopes just loaded with stamps like these that people/sellers considered ordinary/non-collectible/only worth face value, which is OK, but if I was an impressionable kid, I would eat these up. And back in my day 50 years ago, you could buy little "surprise" bags of canceleds for like $1 at the department store, whoch is what ignited my interest as an 8 year old.

Those surprise bags are gone (just like neighborhood department stores), so packages like this are a nice replacement. Soak 'em off and ignite some imaginations.

Here mightbe an interesting take on this topic that I've gleaned from the responses here. When it comes to kids, it's a matter of kick-starting an interest via our interest, which often boils down to value because, well, now we old folks have money and can be pick and choose. We've become discernable collectors because we have the money to do that..

But kids? Jeez, kids can't even get an after-school paper route anymore to even buy decent stamps if they wanted to from a corner coin/stamp shop whch doesn't exist anymore. So what's a kid to do these days, how do we old folk kickstart that interest?

It's pretty easy. With stamps. Today's stamps. Yesterday's stamps. Forget condition, centering, date of issue. Because it's all avout the stamp itself. For instance, the most expensive and sought-after USA stamps fetature the bust of some dead guy. I hate 'em -- no artistry whatsoever. They're just blah. If someone's estate gifted mewith one worth several hundred dollars, I wouldn't refuse it, But value isn't why stamps appealed to me in the first place when I was a kid.

My own collection has a few 1900s gems, but their $$ value is basically negligible to me. Their $$ value may matter in 10 or 20 years to my daughter who inherits my cultivated collection, but it was a collection built upon artistry and craft of past stamp designers rather than basic attention to $$.

@johnsim03 said >> That is a clever usage of the 2 cent Franklin postal cards! (I would imagine a lot of us have dozens of those things gathering dust in our stamp rooms...)<<

I thought exactly that when I got that package, too. How cool was that? They're pretty much collector-worthless now (or even before), but snip 'em off and ignite a little mind.

*That's* how get kids interested in this hobby for a lifetime. With the "worthless" stuff.