re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

My collections will hopefully allow my son to relax and trade with others or barter on ebay...lol I just hope he enjoys it as much as I do....

 
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BobbyBarnhart

re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

Randy, my philosophy exactly! Or, to put it another way:

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larsdog

APS #220693 ATA#57179
07 Nov 2015
10:36:50pm

re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

To paraphrase Jack Benny, I hope my wife doesn't sell my stamps for what I told her I paid for them!

Lars

 
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ikeyPikey

08 Nov 2015
09:29:04am

re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

The Ethereal Rewards of Stamp Collecting: The icing? Or, the cake?

"They want what ?!? For six dollars, I can see the New York City Ballet!"

It was my mother that taught me how to evaluate value; from the ticket prices, you can tell it was a long time ago.

I recently re-directed myself into collecting GPU (Genuinely Postally Used) stamps, but only on cover or card.

Since I now have every hole to fill (are you spending too much time on the internet?), I've been pawing thru the bargain boxes.

Recent adventures pawing thru a $1/item box (more selectively) and a 25c/item box (less selectively) both ended-up costing me about twenty bucks an hour.

Dinner-and-a-movie-for-two also ends-up costing me about twenty bucks an hour.

If I walked-out of the bourse, and tossed the cards & covers in the trash, I'd feel it was cash & time well-spent.

Taking the treasures home, and sorting & researching (& scanning & posting) adds more hours for the same bucks, dramatically reducing the hourly rate that I am paying for my entertainment.

A few years ago, tired of pawing thru close-out racks & garage sales, I started buying brand new hardcover books at full retail. I read slowly - and I stop & think & call-to-discuss & re-read - so the hourly rate I was paying for reading brand new hardcover books was a bargain compared to, say, renting a movie on DVD.

After all, two bucks an hour is two bucks an hour.

If you are spending, say, an average of U$D 100 per stamp, and spend ten hours shopping & checking & bidding (&, G-d Willing, scanning & posting), you are already down to only ten dollars per hour.

You could probably just as well shred the little treasures when you get them home, and call yourself even.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

 
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cdj1122

re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

" .... The Ethereal Rewards of Stamp Collecting ...."

I've posted my feelings about that, or this, before;

"..... My decision to collect stamps, especially postally used worldwide stamps, was made slightly over fifty years ago and has not been regretted in the slightest, It came with a companion decision. I plan to die before my collection comes up for sale and let someone else worry about what it is worth. I have left informational instruction sheets explaining things such as what I have written here in many threads and hope that one of my children or grandchildren will be able to do more than just hold a garage sale on a rainy Saturday morning.
I have had the pleasure of ownership. I have had the excitement of the chase and the thrill of success as some interesting addition completes a page, or even better, a series of pages. I have long benefited from the knowledge of other cultures, of the details of printing and production that even the most oblivious accumulator is exposed to in his collecting habits. And then there is the vicarious enjoyment of visiting faraway lands that I will never actually see, or of mentally returning to places that I have visited in my youth when I travelled extensively. And last but by no means least, I have found friendship and sometimes, companionship in the numerous stampers whom I have met in person or corresponded with from all corners of this circular world. These things can neither be quantified nor taken away easily. They also cannot be sold in a box or an album to another person. But to me that is the true value of stamping. They fill in the hours and populate an aging memory as well as provide an occasional sense of excitement.
Some years ago there was an article in the then current Life Magazine that told the story of several more or less wealthy (Translation: Filthy rich) stamp collectors and illustrated some of the gems in their possession. One very well known collector, in explaining why he travelled around the states and sometimes the world, purchasing rare and unusual stamps for his voluminous collections, said in response to a question as to why he was so motivated; "You do not know what stamps can do to a man."
I remember reading that in 1954 and about ten years later came across a copy of the magazine so I bought it. I still have the beat up copy on a shelf in my stamp room.
Many times, especially after I resumed the hobby, I thought about the meaning of those words and their inherent truth. Most people do not understand why these little pieces of paper create such interest. I cannot think of why, or how, they manage to mesmerize men and women so completely. But I do know that they do so.
For some stampers financial gain is as important as the less quantifiable benefits I treasure.
I understand that. I suppose all of us have a secret hope that something that we collect will eventually have some value above and beyond what we paid for it or the value of the effort we spent looking for it.
I will state categorically from years of experience and observation that, in my opinion, the majority of stampers who seek stamps as an investment, (They actually are usually accumulators.) will gain comparatively far less than they hope to, while those who seek the simple pleasure of possession and completion of a theme or an album are quite likely to be pleasantly surprised. Or their heirs will. ..."

 
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Guthrum

08 Nov 2015
05:10:37pm

re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

For me the two are importantly linked, though I have occasionally strayed from what I think is a rather stricter approach to stamp-collecting than many in this club. For me a stamp is primarily a historical artefact, created for a purpose. That purpose is, or should be, primarily to pay for postage, but is often secondarily to convey a message to its users or receivers about its country of origin. It is that secondary purpose that interests me.

However, were I to adhere strictly to the primary purpose, I should probably collect only used stamps, and preferably used stamps on cover, as many do. But I don't; so my secondary interest lies in the appearance and design of the stamp.

Where these two interests - historical significance and arresting design - converge is where I am at my happiest with the hobby. I've done my best to study the Third Reich via (among much else) its stamps, and am presently doing the same with Stalin's Russia. This fascination with totalitarian states is not one I can easily explain except from the academic viewpoint that both were of supreme importance in twentieth-century European history. There is another point: that in following these interests I get to hold in my hands, to own, a genuine artefact from the lower depths of civilisation - not an especially worthy attitude to have adopted but one which I no longer see much point in denying. The schoolboy who assembled Hitler definitives to challenge schoolmasters of the generation who fought against Hitler still lurks in there, somewhere.

Where does it end? Most, perhaps 75%, of the stamps I have can swiftly be disposed of, preferably to a good cause, even my GBs, over which I once took some trouble. But I will try to insist to my beloved son that the Third Reich and the Soviet material, as well as the WW2 commemorative stockbooks, were carefully assembled, bought at some cost, researched thoroughly, and presented on the page to an acceptable standard.

If he then tosses them away to a car boot sale after I'm gone, oh I shall return to haunt him most terribly!

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GeoStamper

Steve
08 Nov 2015
09:26:19pm

re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

ikeyPikey, I like your reasoning! My Dad gave me some similar wisdom back in the 1970's when I spent $12 each for two tickets to an all-day Summer Jam concert. He made me do the math, and it came out to something like $3 per hour to see the Beach Boys, Doobie Brothers, and 3-4 other bands.

-Steve

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ikeyPikey

09 Nov 2015
08:58:26am

re: My approach to stamp collecting and reality[

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