It may not be as popular a hobby as it once was, but many people still collect stamps today. In my own experience, those who enjoy this quiet but satisfying pastime rarely talk about it much, except when in the company of other stamp collectors.
What is the appeal of collecting stamps?
For me, as an eight year old, it was a mix of geography, colour, novelty, order and fun. It was also an opportunity to work on my collection together with my father, who helped me get started and passed on the duplicates to me. He is gone, but that is something I still remember today.
Philately is also a relaxing hobby that can calm a troubled day. There is something almost therapeutic about sorting through a group of stamps, and it’s such a joy to find and place the necessary items in an album and watch your collection grow.
There was a time when stamp shops selling stamps and philatelic supplies to collectors were everywhere. Even Macy’s and Gimbles had stamp departments. I remember going to Woolworth’s, let’s say in the 50’s and 60’s and buying stamp packs, usually colorful and exotic, for my collection.
My grandparents even took to saving stamps for me, and my grandmother, who worked in a downtown office building, faithfully brought back the stamps she saved from the incoming mail for many years. There were also magazines that advertised pen pals, and I exchanged letters and stamps with a guy in Korea who was about my age and also a stamp collector. And mail-order stamp companies selling “approved stamps” are advertised on everything from matchboxes to comic books. And once you got past the beginner stage, joining a stamp exchange was a way to trade your duplicates with other members, using the mail.
Today, with e-mail, low long-distance rates, and metered postage instead of stamps, even recent US commemorative stamps are hard to find unless you buy them new, as-issued , at the post office.
Publishers like White Ace still offer album pages for US commemorative stamps, if collecting stamps purchased at the post office appeals to you. But doing this may not be as relaxing or satisfying as assembling an old-fashioned international collection into a world album.
If you’re new to the hobby, starting with a general world collection can be a good way to go. Not only will it give you an overview of the hobby, but you might also discover that you have a special interest in stamps from a country or two, or from a certain part of the world, or from a certain point in time, or even the stamps that present a specific theme. The latter are called topics and are widely collected.
There may not be as many stamps in the mail as there used to be, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any collectible stamps. It just means having to find them, or find sources for them.
Unless you kept up an extensive foreign correspondence, collecting postage stamps was never much fun, anyway. In fact, today there are more stamps than ever. Growth in quantity is cumulative. Not only are more stamps being issued around the world, but once they are in the hands of collectors, stamps are rarely lost except possibly in a flood or fire.
Over time, most stamps will resurface somewhere because most people who come across an old stamp collection left behind by a loved one tend to think that it might be worth something, no matter how meager or basic, and won’t throw it away but find a way to dispose of it, even if it’s just by taking it to a thrift store.
Today, many stamps that were collected during what might have been the height of philately, say just before World War II through Vietnam, continue to fill the market with older and more interesting material. Much of it is available through auctions, as well as through dealers who advertise in the philatelic press or offer their holdings online. The Modern-Vue stamp shop, for example, is a good place to look for “philatelic treasures” online. And if you check your phone book, you can still find a stamp shop or stamp dealer in your area.
Where you take your collection will depend on where you want to go with your hobby. For those with the interest and the means, or with the investment in mind, the most valuable stamps can be found in the print catalogs of philatelic auction houses, but the more plentiful and less expensive items can also be a lot of fun, especially if you have a album in which to place them.