Winds Of Change In The Philatelic World

Most people that I see, when they get an inherited stamp or coin collection, is "tell me how rich I am!" I very rarely see anyone who is actually interested in the stamps or coins. I get that not everyone wants to collect, but the number of people who inherit something without wanting to make an instant buck is kind of sad. Your relative spent their life collecting this stuff and you want to throw it away.

Very much- one man's junk is another man's treasure. I wouldn't say it is sad. I would say 'to each their own'. If everyone kept their inherited stamps in the family, there wouldn't be nearly as much market turnover, especially on the mid to high end. Nothing is more limiting to collectors than descendants who don't hock dear old dad's stamps. That's exactly what sourcing material is, no?

There are two forces at play here with the young generation ,

The first is they don't want to follow the path thru life that their father or grandparents followed .

The second is the younger generation wants to be invouled with the new thing and explore life with the latest and greatest .


That is why you don't see the children of Hippies running around with peace , love and beads ......they want to cut their own direction .

The responses I've read in this topic is very interesting and fluid. I regularly hangout at a local stamp dealer's shop in an antique mall. Many people who pass by the dealer's shop talk amongst themselves "People still collect stamps?", "My father, grandfather, etc. passed away and collected stamps for years, can I bring it by to see what it's worth?, we don't want it as it is taking up space in the (closet, bedroom, attic, etc.)." Unfortunately, I'd say 95% of the time, the dealer recommended to give them to family members or donating it to the Boy Scouts, rather than insulting any perceived expectations. For me, specializing in pre 1900 Hawaii covers, is very personal to me only and not to anyone else. Many purchases I've made come from Siegel, Rumsey, Harmer auctions. I've posted a few if you search my user name. Nevertheless, my wife, nor my attorney daughter has hardly any interest in my stamp collection.
But, for my gold coins and PCGS/NGC certified rare coins, now that's a different story!!

So who'd you pass your beads on to, Floor?

This generation moves around much more than my generation did, too. The old days of working for one company for 30+ years is much less common. Being burdened with sets of Grandma's China, family collectibles and other "stuff" becomes problematic when your job keeps relocating you.

There are a lot of philosophers on this forum. Okay rismoney gets the square. - how many people know that expression. :)

Exploring stamps on youtube is the best thing to happen to stamp collecting in the last 20 years. He has single handily gotten many young folks into to the hobby. Folks, you only get to live once. YOLO your favorite stamps while you are on this Earth and can enjoy it. Once you are dead your heirs can deal with the fallout. Good luck!

This issue is similar to my fraternity back in college. In order for the fraternity to continue year after year it needed new members. You couldn't sit on the couch and expect freshmen to walk thru the door and sign up. You had to recruit. You had to go out and talk with the freshmen, invite them over, invite them to fun activities. Each member had to make an effort to recruit new members and maybe you got a "little brother" while doing it. So for everyone complaining young people don't want to collect stamps. What have you done to recruit new members or grow the hobby? Many people on this forum have and do. Many just sit on the couch to see if freshmen will just walk thru the door.......

You want to get young people's attention the best method is throuh their You have to be where they are and applies the older people more and more as companies push people to the mobile phone or the web.

Got to spend time with two ebay stamp sellers yesterday .

They were showing me on the computer , sales and viewing clicks numbers in the stamp section of ebay and both of them agree that sales numbers took a nose dive .

As for me ,I was crying about the lack of aggressive bidding for Sergio's stock of forgeries and the poor showing at auction of all the nice stuff Harmer's International put up in their last auction of forgeries . Tells me there will be less people interested in becoming experts with forgeries .

Oh well the WINDS of CHANGE .

Crushing inflation and war(s) will do that. The high end stays strong but the average man/woman/combination is feeling it. Look at credit card debt and what is being put on credit cards such as groceries and utility bill payments. Look at surveys on the economy. This is not the time when many people are spending $$$ on stamp collecting or anything discretionary for that matter.

Morning all,

This economy appears to also be effecting the amount of new lots being posted to ebay at least in US covers and especialy the postal history section. Anyone else seeing a similar effect in other collectable areas of ebay?

you failed to say whether there were fewer being posted (fear of lower sales) or more posted (need to raise more cash)

back in the day stamps were seen as a hedge against inflation. yes, right now it's good to be a world wide collector. you can put together your collection on the cheap compared to 2021 or 2020 even.