Popularity Of Philately Outside Europe And North America?

Several months back, I posted regarding the lack of pre-printed albums for pre-Communist China. Got to thinking about that, and really noticed that there's a dearth of such albums for much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

For Asia, Scott still has a good variety, but Lighthouse stopped producing most (all?) of their Asia line, Lindner has some (notably Taiwan, and scattered years of a few others), SAFE has (only?) modern Japan, SG (besides Indian States) and Davo nothing. been essentially relegated to DIYers?

Things seem to be similar, even worse, in the case of Latin America. Colonial Africa has all but disappeared (Yvert stopped producing the era, MOC by Lighthouse almost impossible to get in the US), and modern Africa may as well not exist. Can anyone please prove me wrong? Are there reliable sources for good quality pre-printed (hingeless even better) albums for Imperial China? Pre-war Japan? South Korea? Brazil? Colombia? Zambia? Besides Scott and Palo (thanks for hingeless but make nicer binders, please), it looks like a desert.

Is demand really so poor these days? Did this post answer my own question?

Per your title, I suppose it depends on how you define philately. Outside the US, Canada and Europe, there never was a large enough body of home-grown collectors of a high enough level of collecting to justify making the kind of hardbound album made by Scott, et al.

But those album makers are not the last word nor are their albums considered reasonably complete by everyone. Collectors that are reasonably advanced elsewhere in the world use/have used albums with blank/quadrille pages or stockbooks or Vario-type pages. DIY/do it yourself can be a very good thing in any case.

If you insist on preprinted pages, there is Steiner for some but not all of the examples of what you mentioned above.

Basically, it is as hy-brasil writes.

There is nothing wrong with philately outside Europe and North America. South and East Asia have seen many large international exhibitions. Demand from those countries have even driven up prices for classic European stamps. At one point it sent prices for material from the region through the roof. South America may be slightly less of a market, but it, certainly, is not small.

Europe and North America, traditionally, had the wealth for people to spend money on collections. The hobby is more developed there because those areas had a head start. Most album makers serviced geographically divided markets. Until today, Scott hardly has a market in Europe.

South America will have drawn most attention from Spanish collectors. Asia has been more of a niche market and not been interesting for album makers to develop albums for few collectors of those regions that would have had access to their albums.

Classic Paper.

Agree with the other members. It's how one defines the "issue".

Steiner offers a very good starting point. And his pages can be customized so as to address addtl details, varieties, etc.

Specific to pre 1949 China, have you reached out to the China Stamp Society? Rather active group both here in the States as well as in China.

I'd use quadrille. 1,000 pages cost around £100, binders around £30, and you can lay them out as you like, and collect in as much or as little detail as you choose. I have MOC pages for most French Colonies, bought when I had more money to blow than I do now. Am I any happier using those than the albums I've put together myself? No - although I am happier than I'd have been had I used Steiner or Palo's expensive, tarted-up version thereof. In the case of British Commonwealth, I've largely abandoned Gibbons's printed albums in favour of quadrille.

In Scott's case I always have thought that their attitude was "we have captured _________in our Worldwide albums".

Whatever the case, I am pretty certain that the manufacturers track what sells pretty closely and if the demand warranted production of a standalone Zambia it would be on the market.

Yeah, that's what I mean, in a nutshell: there isn't enough demand, anywhere in the world, for most manufactures to publish even the large countries: even among 640m people in Latin America, and billions everywhere else, only three sets are available for Mexico: Scott, Palo, and etiangui. Such a pity.

Geoff, re SG, did you find those albums poorly laid out? Not comprehensive enough for your needs?

CP - the Gibbons are fine, but they just didn't really accord with how I wanted to arrange my collection. The QEII New Age originally ran to the late-'60s, but those produced in recent decades have finished in 1962. I preferred to end my own BC with independence (so India, for example, ends in the 1940s, rather than running to 1962) and/or 1970, with improvised cut-off dates for Australia, NZ and Canada. The GVI albums were just getting messy with ad hoc pages for several countries where I happened to have perf or shade varieties. I still have a fastbound New Imperial album set, but my earlier BC isn't such that I need scope for expansion!

Edifil publishes pages for former Spanish colonies, including Cuba. Yvert has albums for a few non-European countries. But yes, outside of Palo/Steiner & Scott, most non-European countries aren't to be found in pre-printed albums.

If you look at the line-up in any large country collection lot auction, the material for the "usual suspects" far outweighs that available for most other countries.

My feeling is that collecting is becoming ever more international - I've noticed quite a bit of activity by Latin American and South/East Asia buyers both in my stores and in posts on philatelic social media (e.g. Instagram, Reddit).

~Greg

There is no doubt that Latin America is now a "hot" area to collect based upon what I see at auction.

Being developed; working backwards

https://www.lindner-original.de/en/...-albums/asia
https://www.lindner-original.de/en/...bums/america

I don't want to get into a big political debate here, but I think for many years stamp collecting in non-western countries and particularly 3rd world countries was held back by 'economics' and the 'lack of legacy collections' readily available. We've enjoyed both without thought to it.

With recent changes in technology, economics and political activity over the past 20+ years, if promoted, I think we may see a rise in those areas. China is growing quickly from a stamp (and everything else) collecting perspective. In many ways, the Internet and the growth of websites supporting philately or providing a market place, has expanded the reach and availability to those who were semi-isolated geographically, economically and politically.

Of course this can also mean a potential increase in competition for material.

Just my off-the-cuff thoughts on the subject...

I saw these, but interpreted it the other way around, that Lindner was getting out of those and selling off remaining stock. Didn't occur to me that they might be getting in. Great news!

@jconey. Absolutely - the rise of a middle class with disposable income to spend on hobbies in many countries (India is a great example), combined with the international reach of online selling platforms, has made collecting possible for someone whenever they may be.

I've sold a number of Indian stamps to collectors in India, Chilean stamps to folks in Chile, etc. - the stamps, which were in North American collections for decades, are "returning home" so to speak now that people have the ability to collect their own countries more extensively and can buy from anywhere.

Interest is increasing in the rest of the world without question. But just how much? How many printed albums get exported nowadays?

There are plenty of avid stamp collectors in Japan, easily assumed to be a mature market. Pre-Covid, people would line up at their local POs to try to buy a limited supply of commems. Japan Post hasn't sold individual stamps by mail or online for many years. But perhaps like the US, collecting new issues does not often translate to collecting older issues. So, there have been very few homegrown albums made and nothing for many decades. The collections I've seen from there were nearly all newer issues housed in small format stockbooks.

I am of the same mind as GeoffHa. There is far more flexibility in using blank or quadrille pages. Is a specialist of any level really going to use the Scott Machin album? Rather, why not use quad pages individually dedicated to each value, or pages based on paper or tagging? It's then your choice of style/format. Plus why have to buy a complete country album(s) when you have an arbitrary cutoff date of, say, pre-independence issues?

As with everything else, it comes down to supply and demand. If there is no demand, it's almost certain that there will be no supply. Luckily, anyone can make their own pages and make them look exactly the way they want them to look.