The APS Report On Resurecting The Hobby

Ultimately I don't see the APS radically changing. Their management and Directors are chosen for NOT being disrupters. The legacy aspect of the APS is front and center in the organizational psyche. It's a requirement. Getting real after my previous posts I acknowledge that the odds of the APS blowing up the current model to survive are nil. The facility isn't going to get sold. The staffing isn't going to get lean and mean. They are going to double down on spending more money chasing what may as well be ghosts since all of these "new collectors" hiding out there who require the APS aren't proven. They cannot even begin to tickle the beginning of assigning a really rough number to whom and how many they are trying to reach. It's one thing to have market research that tells you a customer exists and quite another to bet real money on what is essentially wishful thinking until proven otherwise.

I have to believe that if you collect stamps you are already aware of the APS. The APS is constantly referenced in writings, advertised in trade publications, mentioned at the top of Google searches and promoted by companies such as Mystic. If you aren't a member at this point it is a choice. It's not that the APS is a secret gem you are unaware of.

I see activity that I have not seen before. They are actually hiring experienced people and not just finding people who have are looking for a quick job.

The question is can they create the marketing to change the direction. In the past we were told the website would be a big draw and there would be a strong education push. Neither met what most were expecting.

I agree there are a lot of collectors that are members so APS only has to provide something they want or need.

I recall the days when there were regular columns in Linn's about stamp clubs.

I'll just quietly slide this postal history article I was working on under my stamp table...

I am surprised that nobody has suggested that the APS should start making peelable hinges for the masses, quit the expert service (as worthless really), quit promoting stamps as an investment, and start promoting it as a hobby without expectation of financial gain.

That would be great as a general rule for everyone, although nobody seems capable of making a Dennison-style hinge. The whole expertization service nonsense is all about making money. It's ruined a lot of hobbies already because it takes the fun out of it. No hobby should be about making a profit. It's fun for the sake of fun, done with your spare time and money.

"The whole expertization service nonsense is all about making money."

That sentence is nonsense. Grading may mostly be about money, but proper identification and describing faults or saying something has no faults is about getting things right, not about money.

I actually was just coming back to change that to grading. Expertizing is fine for determining if a stamp is legitimate. Grading is bunk.

How are they promoting stamps as an investment? It is not obvious to me.

Although I personally dislike it, graded stamps are another way to collect. And since people often spend what some would call stupid money on them, the only people making money on them are dealers and auction houses. Most people are not good at grading and tend to over rate their own stamps.

Grading has been a financial boon to expertizing agencies. Many stamps which would never have been submitted because of opinion cost pre-grading are submitted.

As to whether the APS grading service has value, probably not much if the goal is to add value when disposing of items. Most auction houses don't put much stock in certificates from other than PF and PSE. Even PSAG isn't that recognized. Whether that position is justified is another discussion but that is the way it is.

Since the PF is a non profit, the "boon" is pretty limited.

Grading is an attempt at making a commodity market, not a collector market.

PF must be on a dangerous path calling themselves a non profit. They lost all touch with education years ago.

It's really not though. It's just a way to make more money off of gullible people. One only has to look to comic book collecting to see it go completely wrong. They take comics, whose entire purpose for existing is to be read, and sink them in plastic so that they can never be read. People aren't collecting comics, they are collecting slabs of plastic.

Luckily, stamps haven't gotten that treatment, which means that the grade only means what the stamp looked at at the moment it was graded. Whatever happens to it thereafter, the certificate can't report. So what do you have to do every time you sell one? Get it re-graded which only benefits the grading companies.

Who thinks this is a good idea?

Any stamp with a certificate should be re-evaluated after a certain amount of time when sold, whether graded or not. Some say after 5 years, but certainly 10 years or more should be looked at by fresh eyes. Especially since the criteria for examining stamps has changed greatly over the years. In any case, whoever is doing the grading is just providing a service; it's not as if they are the ones making a fortune off each of them.

Revcollector - you assume that in another 5 or 10 years there will be anybody left who CAN expertise with knowledge instead of a dartboard which is what they use at the PF on postal history these days.