Philately a Dying Hobby?

Kacyds- Good post. I think that, on the whole, I agree with your take on the subject.

Stamps has a lot more competition in terms of collecting. The biggest threat is to traditional groups that resist change.

I have a couple of theories and several opinions about this. The opinions vary in strength and toxicity, so be warned.

I started collecting when I was about 7 or 8, got more serious through junior high (what Americans now call "middle school") and part of high school. My old Harris Liberty album, which I've kept around throughout all these years, gets a little sparse in 1968, so I guess that's when I eased out. I resumed after college, and collected fairly seriously for about five years. Then I stopped suddenly. That time, I stopped because of some personal situations, but also because stamp collecting had changed; people were pushing it as an "investment". I remember one of my neighbors telling me that she had subscribed to an FDC service and it had been touted to her as a can't-miss bonanza, and she was going to put her daughter through school on them. The 1970s were full of ideas that would make us all rich. The 1970s were full of a lot of things, some of which are famous.

There was one stamp dealer near me. He was a good guy in some ways, and I can't say he ever took me for a ride in business dealings, but we didn't relate that well personally, and he was prone to making unkind remarks about non-European racial groups, a philosophy I've never had any patience with. He eventually retired, and though I went to a number of local stamp shows (this was in New Jersey, which was pretty good for things like that), I didn't meet any suitable replacements, and I didn't enjoy the shows that much. I was in my twenties, looked and acted like somebody out of Springsteen Country (which indeed I was; I managed a warehouse for a metals wholesaler, rode around on a forklift, drove a truck around New Jersey delivering things), and I neither felt like I fit in at stamp shows nor was ever made to feel like I could fit in.

toyempire says, a few posts above,

Yeah, that's the generation philately missed out on, in my opinion. There was a certain amount of philatelic inflation, some of it well-publicized (that's about when the American Zeppelins went through the roof), and it was also the beginnings of deindustrialization and a generally sluggish economy, especially for young people. Getting into stamps required more money, more supplies, and more palpable risk than it had before.

Once a chain is broken, it's always hard to make it like new again.

Let's go forward to a more modern time. Let's do that because I was away from stamps for about 30 years. I went to the APS exhibition in 2008, mainly because it was in Hartford, Connecticut, not far from where I live. One thing I did notice is that some of the dealers were pushy, yelling at me from across the aisle, and that their customers hadn't exactly stepped out of Emily Post's Book of Etiquette either. (More about that later.) I really enjoyed the exhibits, and because of a personal situation that was almost the exact opposite of what I had in the 1970s - my wife had had a few health problems that necessitated me being a stay-at-home husband, and despite all that we were financially solvent - I decided that I could do this again.

I have yet to find a stamp club that I've felt comfortable in. I mean a bricks-and-mortar stamp club. My experiences have been pretty sour. I haven't noticed, as angore has, the APS flogging the revitalization of stamp clubs (though I don't doubt that they are); but it may be a lost cause. In person, I'm not that hard to get along with, and I've got enough natural curiosity that if somebody starts talking to me about what they collect, I don't automatically tune out even if I have no idea what he's talking about. I'm even pretty good at thinking of questions to ask. I don't expect everybody to like me and tell each other what a great guy I am or anything like that, but I don't expect to be treated like I just escaped from prison, either. Maybe the relative dearth of younger people has made these groups too inbred, and many of the people, when confronted with an unfamiliar face, simply don't know how to act. Kind of like these isolated tribes you hear about once in a while that throw spears at every anthropologist who wanders onto their land because they have no way of telling anthropologists, missionaries, oil prospectors, agrarian terrorists, and cable TV guys apart from one another.

I'm not saying that all stamp collectors are weenies. I met some really nice people at the New York show last year, and had some excellent conversations with a few exhibitors at the annual New England show (Boxboro(ugh), Massachusetts). I even like this forum! But, besides my unfortunate experiences with clubs, I've witnessed some incredibly asocial behavior in public places like stamp shows. I remember at one show, the exhibit frames were set up about a foot north of where they should have been, and some dealers didn't have, really, enough space for their potential customers to sit down. I was one of those customers, and when I noticed that people were having trouble getting around me, I scrunched up the chair as much as I could so they wouldn't trip over the legs of the chair. The dealer thanked me, and mentioned that I was the only customer who had made any effort to do that. And (as the young people say) I'm like "Huh?" I thought I was being normal.

Maybe philately's biggest enemy is...philatelists.

I do detect some interest amongst young people. And here's my prediction. Stamp collecting will survive, but it'll be in a form that many True Philatelists™ will find very hard to swallow. It will be limited collections. It will be topicals: the pretty pictures that old-skool hinge hounds deride. It will be definitive issues only. It'll be collecting postmarks and letters from places that used to be Germany and now are Poland, or that used to be Poland and are now Belarus or Russia or something. It'll be comic book characters. Whatever it is, I hope it'll be fun for everybody, because there are too many people who aren't having enough fun doing what they're doing, whether they even realize it or not.

My 3 lads collect nothing - not interested - so not sure who the collectors will be in the future.

In NZ there seems to be quite a few Chinese/Korean people interested at local auctions. Perhaps they are they next collecting group.

I do not think that it is a hobby in the twilight of its existence; but if it is, there may be some good deals to be had in the coming years. *laugh*

I get a little annoyed when I read comments/letters in stamp magazines bemoaning the lack of used modern stamps, especially when they don't use nice stamps on their outgoing mail. I must get round to letter writing tonight.

As kacyds mentioned, I know the hobby isn't dying because of how rarely I'm able to win an ebay auction! I don't think I've won even one time in the last year.

I admit that I don't know anyone else who collects other than the people I've met through this forum however, but that's not new, even when I first started collecting in the late 70's I didn't know any other collectors other than my Dad who had got me started.

My friend is a semi-professional photographer having worked with some famous ones. I asked him about joining a camera club - he said that they tend to be competitive in terms of equipment (and my lens is bigger than yours, size matters). So, from an amateur point of view, that sort of feeling in a club can be off-putting. I wonder then if you are new to stamp collecting and quite young, how welcomed you'd be in a stamp club and would you feel at home.

The real question is how does it affect someone who collects stamps. The stamps will always be there and people can interact but items such as albums, mounts, catalogs, publications, etc. may be more affected (fewer selections, more expensive, etc).

You can spend $5000 and get a lot of stamps to sort for many years. Cheaper than cable.