How Do We Get From This...to This...in Less Than A Lifetime!

Whilst putting together my site I have the benefit of seeing close up how some countries' stamps change over the years - countries such as Tanzania and Niger that have put out a fair few giraffe-related stamps over the years.

It almost makes me want to weep, however, when I sit back and take in how rapidly the amount of care and attention going in to producing stamps has decreased. As an example (one that has just struck me), compare these two stamps from Niger.

The first was issued on 13 January 1969 to mark Philexafrique, held the following month in Abidjan. Oh, and David, it features a stamp on a stamp!



Although I don't have a quality scan of it, you can still see the care and attention that's gone into its preparation. It was drawn / engraved by Jean Pheulpin, a French artist who started off as a professor of design, making engravings for publications and museums, and after the Second World War moved into stamp design, and produced stamps for France and its colonies from 1949 until 1987, during which time he created more than 650 stamps.

Against that let's set this stamp, from under 40 years later, from the same country.



It's ridiculous. It's something that anyone with a digital camera and a computer could have produced in under 10 minutes. No care or thought has gone into its design - it's not even a particularly good photograph.

Am I alone? Am I just being overly sentimental? Or do others bemoan the seemingly incessant decline in standards? Do any countries buck the trend?

I think this kind of thing (modern technology) affects many aspects of design. Look at modern housing (McMansions) compared to older houses from the 19th Century. You cans see this in U.S. stamps too. I and many others could have come up with the last set of dogs and cats stamps from the U.S. in a couple of hours using various pets from the local neighbors, photoshop and a digital camera. Will

Giraffe, very good point..also about the Mcmansions..15 or 20 years ago the "people from the city" or doctors from Vasser built their homes in secluded wooded areas...then in the last 8 or 10 years they started building the Mcmansions on marginal farmland..good taste is not in fashion !

canada has tried to have some nicely designed and even engraved stamps here and there over the last 10-12 years.

The high value wildlife $1-$8 and a $10 this year is an example of the engraved. Some of the Lunar zodiac stamps are very nicely done, albeit a bit unconventional.

The recent Montreal Canadiens hockey 'motion' stamps were a great example of new technology used on new stamps.

Although, I must agree, it seems to generally have devolved to more expedient rather than more nicely designed and beautiful. More stamps for a cheaper price perhaps. Exceptions everywhere of course.

I think that is also more costly to produce stamps using engraved plates as opposed to a color printer. Sometimes technology advances are not a benefit to collectors, especially stamp collectors.

I agree that with my digital camera, photoshop program, self adhesive paper, and color printer I also could come up with many "stamp like" contemporary designs.

i dont know about you guys but the indian stamp designs have gone up thank heavens

With technology, soon stamps will just be printed on envelopes, just buy the envelope- no more efforts in sticking stamps on it...it's there already printed! and in full color!

I am thinking that the artists that may have been hired to render a subject or theme are few and far between. Digital technology is putting them out of work. As stamp collectors all we can do is be very picky on what we collect and keep the tradition of stamp collecting at its best.

Donna

Did you have something like this in mind, Nic?

That's the way they should be Tony! Wow!

Heck, technology will soon let us send messages around the world at the speed of light without even putting a stamp on it.... oh, wait...

-Allen

(WARNING: personal opinions below)



I find it sad that people's esthetics have gone down so much. While there are some nice new issues out there, so many are... well... nasty. The art of engraving is almost lost. Pride of craftsmanship is almost gone as well. Printers, machinists, and related trades are fading fast, or going overseas. People don't appreciate something that took time and skill to create anymore. They don't even look at real books anymore, just some stupid plastic thing that will be out of date in a week.

I am a little young to be thinking this way, but it is how I feel nonetheless.

I think it has a bit to do with volume also. So many countries crank out stamps at a lightening pace, it's mind-boggling. They can't possibly put out quality at this pace. Precisely why I am mostly interested in earlier issues, pre-1970 for the most part.

An example, the Scott supplement for Portugal in 2006 is 39 pages! Ridiculous.

With poor countries like Niger, I can well understand the need to make stamps cheaply.

The real horrors, in my opinion, are the tacky stamps coming out of the Netherlands and the UK. These stamps are so tasteless they have to reflect some kind of perverse agenda.

I agree completely jimjamtwo
Portugal issued a set of stamps depicting various regional types of bread.
I like bread as much as the next guy, but on stamps?
It seems like in the race to issue more and more stamps (for collectors) they are grabbing at such banalities for topics..

http://selosemarcaspostais.blogspot...l-padas.html

That's exactly why I stopped collecting U.S. stamps in 1993. All the USPS is doing is putting out a ton of uninteresting issues designed solely to screw the collector market. Heck, in 2009 alone, they put out almost 250 stamps! My albums go from 1847-1970 and from 1970-1993. One is almost 130 years. The second, equally as thick, is only 23 years. If I had a third album, it would be just as thick as the first two and only go 15 or so years.

Forget it. There's very little coming out worthwhile, it's all horribly commercial and I'm just not interested.