| Status and Musings |
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Musings
I started down this path in February, 1998,
and it has already been a long journey. It's been 3 years, and so far
it has been fun although there have been lots of frustrations. This
site is almost 3 years old, and has moved once, and had about 1000 hits in that time
- much more than I imagined it would receive. I've made some internet friends through it, and also made a lot of trades, a few sales, and a larger number of purchases from some very nice people who have visited it and been interested enough to send me a note.
The differences
in collecting at age 12 vs. age 50+ are larger than I had imagined.
I knew that there were more issues available - just look at what the
USPS has done over the last few years - but I didn't realize how
pervasive this was. And it keeps getting worse. It's not just more
new issues, it's so many new countries with so many new issues.
According to Linn's, there were over 17,000 new issues in 2000.
That's over 45 new stamps a day. Even if that was affordable, the
logistics of getting all of those new issues is tremendous, and then
mounting them all would take a great deal of time - if the album
pages were available. When I stopped collecting around 1957, the
Scott catalog was two volumes (if I remember rightly - it may have
still been only one volume), and there were probably less than
200,000 stamps listed in it. I had about 2500 different stamps in my total
collection (U.S. and World Wide) so I had over one percent of
the issues. Albums were relatively cheap - and small. No one
knew or cared about acid in the pages. The MNH craze had not
started so mounts weren't needed as much.
(Remember "Crystal Mounts"?) There were stamp stores
and supplies everywhere.
Today, there are over 3 times
the number of U.S. and World Wide stamps available. Albums have
had to grow to keep up. World Wide albums generally can't keep
pace. It takes a whole room to store a complete set, and they
are extremely expensive. What should be a relatively inexpensive
hobby (unless you are looking for expensive key items) has become
much more expensive because of the actions of the postal authorities
of the world, and of collectors who only want MNH stamps. Most
new collectors (and there aren't that many) have been driven to
topical collecting, while older collectors generally specialize
in smaller collecting areas such as smaller countries or colonies,
or an area or era of a larger country.
There is so much "wallpaper" being produced, that
I wonder how much fun it can be to try and collect modern worldwide
issues. Sure, stamps with cute Disney characters sell well - but
stamps should relate to the country of origin. The last time I
checked, the countries that sell all of these Disney stamps don't
have a DisneyWorld in them. My own postal authority is among the
worst perpetrators of this trend. Other than to sell stamps to
topical collectors, what is the purpose behind the 1998 issues
like "Bright Eyes" and "Space Discovery"? Every year, the USPS puts out more "junk" just to make money. Most of the stamps they sell as commemoratives never end up on stamps - which is just what the USPS wants.
Much of what should be commemorated is not, or ends up on
definitives. When was the last stamp honoring Abraham Lincoln, or Benjamin Franklin? The postal authorities of the larger countries really
should be leaders in "responsible stamp issuance."
What a shame the U.S. is so driven by short term marketing of
mint "collectible" stamps.
On Supplies...
One thing that really
shocked me was the state of simple hinges. One I came back to
collecting, I threw out all my old supplies; my old crystal mounts
and my old hinges. I figured that I wouldn't need them anymore -
that modern technology would have better, inexpensive mounts and
hinges. Well, I found out different. The new mounts are certainly
better - but hideously expensive! And the new hinges damage stamps
as often as not! To think that I threw out two packs of Dennison
hinges. Of course, the MNH craze started by dealers to enable them
to charge more (and sell more mounts of course) has also really hurt
collecting in my opinion. Yes, a perfect stamp should be worth a
little more, but not 50 to 100 percent more.
Philatelic Elitism...
One other area
that has surprised me it some of what seems to be snobbery among some
types of collectors. While it is human nature to think that what you
do is important (or it should be anyway), so many collectors seem to
look down on those who do things differently or collect differently,
or don't study each stamp they have to death. I am impressed with
the research that goes into good exhibits that win prizes in the major
shows. But I am not impressed with the basic premises that decide
what makes up a good exhibit. I think there is an awful lot of elite
snobbery involved that is perpetuated through a very tight
"good-old-boy/girl" circle of collectors and
"philatelic officials." I really don't think this is doing
the hobby any good.
The Internet...
The best thing I can see in the hobby
today, is the use of the Internet. The discussion groups, the email
list, the online auctions, sites with material available for sale
(stamps and supplies both), all the information (including some
wonderful exhibits showing up), the instant communications, all
make for a much more dynamic philatelic experience. And it seems
that it's only getting better. Maybe, thanks to the Internet, the
hobby will survive all of the efforts by the postal authorities to
kill it.
My collection status and this site...
It's hard to believe it's been
3 years since I started back down the stamp collecting road. I've
had a lot of pleasant experiences and "met" a lot of nice
folks (dealers and collectors) on the net. I've been successful at
a couple of tasks I'd set out for myself; organizing my old collection
into newer, more complete albums, and adding to it. One offshoot has
been this site, which has been fun and led to several trades and
purchases which have benefited both of the parties involved.
More on supplies - albums...
Albums continue to frustrate. One of the biggest frustrations I
remember having as a kid was having so many stamps that were not
pictured in my album. I bought stamps on approval
(Mystic and Jamestown if I remember correctly) and the new stamps
they sent (and I bought) were never in the album (of course) and
there didn't seem to be any way to fix that problem. And many of
the older stamps I had wouldn't fit, either. I ended up with about
as many stamps stacked up in manila stock booklets as I did in the album. It
made it very hard to figure out what I had, and of course you couldn't
display them well, either. That was one thing that led me to quit
active purchasing of stamps. Today's albums aren't all that much
better. There has to be a compromise made between completeness and
affordability / usefulness. I have restricted my collecting to
pre-1964 (when I completely quit collecting the first time) and
so only need albums up to that date. My compromise has been to
use: Bill Steiner's albums for U.S. and some selected countries
(these are much like specialty albums which you can print yourself - and you can print only the pages you want or need); Scott International for most of the
rest of my World Wide collection (it frustrates as it is so incomplete
and so disorganized - especially the older copies I bought used)
supplemented by pages I make up and print myself; Scott Specialized for a few countries (my favorite album style); and Minkus Plate
Block pages for my U.S. Plate Block collection. I have added pages of my own construction to each of these. A simple program like Microsoft Publisher allows me to make pages of the same style and format as the originals so I can make my own supplements or specialized pages as needed - a real money saver, fun to do, and it lets me keep my collection neatly organized.
I also have found
stamp album binders to be extremely expensive. While I want my
collection to be presentable, I don't want to spend all my money
on supplies. (And I probably spent more on supplies than on
stamps over the first 18 months even though I tred to keep those
expenses down.) So for myScott Specialized, "Steiner," and Minkus pages,
I use medium priced but attractive binders from OfficeMax.
(Dark colors and a little gold trim so dress them up a bit.
So far four for my Plate Blocks which are about 1/3 mounted,
and two for my Steiner county pages.) I expect to move my U.S.
into them also, but that will take time - even these binders cost
about $9 apiece. My Scott International pages sit in four old used
blue International binders and look fine. So progress has been made,
but it is still frustrating when I try to put a stamp into my Scott
International and find there is no space for it, or I get a used stamp
from a se-tenant block and find the Steiner page only has a frame for
the whole block. At least I can now do something about it.
More General Musings...
The new albums have allowed my collection to grow, and it has more
than quintupled in the 3 years I've been working on it - not counting
material that is yet to be mounted. Since my collection is so
diverse, it is difficult to manage. But so far I have not felt a
strong urge to change what I am doing and specialize in any area.
I am still more of a stamp collector than a philatelist. I expect
my US collection will continue to grow, but not as rapidly as most
of the easily obtained and inexpensive material is already there.
(I have also stoppe collecting new U.S. material as of Dec. 31,
2000. Take that, USPS!) My WorldWide collection will probably double again in the
next couple of years, and more countries will be migrated into the Steiner or Scott Specialized pages
as I have more need and as Bill Steiner and his helpers produce more countries or I get the cash to buy more Specialized albums.
On buying stamps today...
The availability of stamps for my collection is both frustrating and
pleasing. The Internet has provided a lot more places to find stamps,
and the competition helps keep prices reasonable. I have made some
very nice purchases both at auctions and directly (and some not so
great ones, too.) But there are thousands of lower priced stamps
that dealers cannot afford to stock but are still needed in a
WorldWide collection. If they are minimum value, they should be
plentiful. If so, where are they? How do you get them? If one
has 40 percent of the stamps from a country, how do you get the
other 40 percent that are inexpensive? It's pretty easy to find
the more expensive ones - dealers and sellers abound. But try to
find those two minimum value stamps from a series you have most of
without having to purchase the entire series! Frustrating.
So Many Stamps, So Little Time...
The other major frustration is time - it takes so much time to mount
all of those stamps (which is why so many folks specialize) that it
seems I will never get through with what I have purchased over the
past 3 years. I recently reorganized what I have waiting for me in my "stamp closet" and ended up with three fairly large boxes of material. That should last me another couple of years before I have to go back out and start purchasing in earnest. I guess I did go a little crazy on eBay when I started.
It still takes
a lot of time just to identify/verify the stamps, and then mount and
catalog them. Computers do make that last chore much easier - I love
spreadsheets, and I bought a little PDA to take to shows with me. If the Scott albums came with catalog numbering
included, and were better organized (ok - so the newer editions are
better organized, and the newer Specialized albums have the numbers - but I can't afford the new ones!) it would make the
collecting more enjoyable. It might even sell more supplies
for the suppliers!
Enough Musings already!!
All in all, it's been a fun filled 3 years, and I hope
this new one (the Year of the Snake) is even more productive now
that I have settled on albums, binders, page creation software
(Microsoft Publisher - another paragraph for another day), and
cataloging software and can concentrate more on stamps. The stamp
mounting and cataloging is going faster - it took six months to
catalog what I originally had (which was only about 2,100 WorldWide and 750
U.S.) so hopefully things will get easier as I go along and learn more.
One last comment. I joined the American Philatelic Society
(APS) and encourage everyone in the U.S.A. who is at all serious
about collecting to do the same. Why? Not because they do that
much for me directly, but because they are the most vocal support
group for the hobby. I also think if more "little guy"
collectors joined, we might be able to change some of the philosophy
of the group to be more small-collector oriented. I have experienced
some nice benefits from membership; their monthly magazine is fairly
interesting (I enjoy Linn's much more), and I have completed some
transactions with other APS members on a much more
"trusting" basis than would otherwise have happened.
I have been using their stamp circuit program for a couple of years now, and I recommend it. It is a good way to get lower priced material and also provides some inexpensive philatelic entertainment.
Thanks for visiting and listening
to my commentary. If you are a new or returning collector, I
hope you found some interesting and possibly useful information
among my ramblings. If you have any comments, suggestions,
questions, or just want to chat, let me know. You can drop me an
email using the linked button below.
(Much more to come -
really under never ending construction. Where else can I rant and
rave to my heart's content?)
