I know this sounds dated but are there any STAMP COLLECTORS among us or our family

Rob Keeble

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Location
GTA Ontario Canada
I am looking for a home for stamps. Would like to pass on some stamps to preferably a youngster that is an enthusiast like we are in woodworking. Nothing of high value but i dont think some of the stamps i have are common in North America given not only where i come from but where i have visited. First day covers too.

I know its not the most popular hobby today but back in my day it sure was educational without even realizing it.

Contact me via pm if interested or you have a kid or grand-kid or even yourself etc that is an up and coming philatelist.
 
I was very interested in collecting in my pre & early teen years. I saved all in hopes my children would enjoy. Alas neither took to the hobby. I think I still have the hoard somewhere. Maybe I could interest one of my granddaughters.
 
I wonder if the apparent drop in the number of stamp collectors has affected the value of stamps...fewer collectors, therefore less value?? I have a collection passed down from my grandfather to my dad and on to me. I look at it occasionally but have never had it valued. I suspect it has little value in this market.
 
Way off topic but I have a new interest in stamps.
I am very lucky to have a rifle club close by the has a monthly sub gun match. I am still semi-auto only but note the use of the word "still".

If a group of targets (mostly steel ) are close together and you can hit them all with one trigger pull, you get bonus points - called style points.

200stamp.jpg
 
Interesting Rob.
I have my grandfathers and dads stamp collection. My dad tried to get me interested in it when I was young and I actively collected for only a short time until I got bored with it. I recently showed it to my grand daughter Abby and she wanted to know if I would help her do it. I'm not sure I have the interest to pick it up again though.
 
My wife inherited her grandmother's collection of stamps a few years ago. There were literally boxes of stamps to go through as none had ever been properly cataloged. I spent untold hours entering as much data as I could into a spread sheet. According to what I found, none of the "collection" was worth very much. Inquiries on a couple of stamp forums led nowhere. If nothing else, we have the stuff separated into manageable segments if anyone exhibits an interest.
 
Interesting that this was brought up today. I bought my first sheet today. Batman stamps baby. :thumb:

Far as getting the younger generation in to collecting stamps, wonder how many know what a stamp it. Don't need a stamp to text or email
 
I am not a stamp collector and have never ever had an interest, but it's also interesting that like so many things they have reached their peak and are now fading from our society, kinda like the books and CD's mentioned in your earlier thread... as we move more and more into the electronic era, I fear their will come a day when it will all be electronic, even our money. I rarely carry cash any more... everything is done with my ATM card.

If you are a Star Trek fan, and remember the movie where the trekkers went back in time to save the whales... they didn't know what money was... in another show during the TV series, Kirk was reading a an actual book instead of the electronic readers ... a comment was made about how rare the actual book was. What man has envisioned does usually come to pass.
Jules Verne imagined the submarine, a trip to the moon, etc.... years and years before we actually did them.
 
I have been collecting U.S. stamps for over 50 years. My collection is as complete as I can afford because the stamps I do not have I will never be able to afford. As a subset I have been collecting Plate Number Coils since their inception and have every single one. I used to collect plate blocks and first day covers but as postage prices have increased I had to give that aspect of the hobby up not only because of the cost of the items themselves but also because of how many albums, glassines and stock books they consumed. I use subscription services to make sure I don't miss any current issues or varieties. Makes the hobby a little more expensive but the quality and completeness makes it worth while.

I sold my foreign stamps perhaps 25 years ago and no longer bother with them.

I have my main collection in Lighthouse turn bar albums which are worth more today than the stamps I am putting in them. There are still avid collectors out there of quality material and I have tried to continually improve the quality/grade of my collection over the years.

I must say stamps have gone from beautiful engraved works of art to not much more than stickers with a self adhesive backing. As I thumb through my album pages it is depressing to see what has happened to American stamps in terms of the quality of the images. The historical aspect of collecting has always intrigued me and I must say I have learned a lot from my stamps about people, places, things and events that I would not know otherwise.

I don't know what will happen to my collection when I pass away. I have described its disposal in my will. I hope it goes to someone who has an appreciation for it. No one in my family is interested and would likely use the collection for postage.
 
I used to buy a page that interested me now and then. Pretty sure they disappeared in the divorce a few eons ago. I noticed a new forever postage stamp the other day I started to score some of, think they may have to be ordered. I thought it was kinda cool that it said "Janis Joplin Forever" on it. My brother I lost when I was just out of my teens was a fan. Since I can't get a Rusty Forever stamp I figured the Janis Joplin stamp was as close as I could get.

Hu
 
I collected in my younger days and have kept my small collection in the hopes that my daughter would be interested in them. As it turns out, she is very "artsy" and loves them as she considers them small works of art. Glad now that I resisted the urge to sell them for next to nothing. :)
 
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