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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I'm a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to stamp collecting, and only like the pre-WW2 ones when stamps were lovingly engraved.

After the war post offices realized they could sell stamps to collectors who wanted "uncancelled" stamps, meaning they were pure profit for the P.O. Stamps were sold from the P.O. directly to collectors who never used them for postage. Hence, the variety of stamps exploded, and the designs were cheaply done. In my not so humble opinion, they wrecked the hobby with this, and it shows in that stamps printed after WW2 have little to no collector value.

The same thing happened to coin collecting. For example, a US mint collector set from the 1970s is worth its metal value today. They look nice, but that's it.

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-I no longer collect stamps, but surely there are countries in which (some) stamps are still made to a very high standard?

While the Norwegian Post have also catered more and more to collectors than to the actual use of their stamps for their intended purpose in later decades, I'd argue that engravers Sverre Morken and Knut Løkke-Sørensen (to name the two most prominent ones) have made quite a number of wonderful stamps also in later decades - all painstakingly engraved.

The Faroes and Iceland also have had quite a few nice issues, however I believe they, too see collectors as their primary market, which kind of defies the purpose of issuing stamps in the first place, I agree!

I gave up on collecting because of that. I dumped the stuff a few years back and invested it in the stock market instead :-)

I'm sure there are some nice ones here and there amid the flood of dreck, but it's not for me anymore. The fraud rampant in the stamp/coin business is pretty off-putting, too. Being an amateur just means your tail feathers are going to get plucked.

What kind of fraud? Counterfeits?

Counterfeits, adverse grading, appraisers swapping your stamps/coins out for lower grade ones, and simply lying to you about the stamps/coins.

It's like the art world. Full of fakes, fraud, etc.

Then there’s people like me helping that problem by buying MNH stamps for 50-60% of face value and using them as postage.

Yes, my packages are covered in stamps, but I like working with the numbers.

The clerks at the PO must hate me, but I see it like using a gift card that was bought 10 years ago.

I ordered something online a while ago, and it came covered in stamps from the ‘60s.

I surprised people sell them at lower than face value? I suppose they never mail anything anymore?

Not enough I guess. Even then, a lot of big sellers get a discount from Canada Post, so often not worth it for them to deal with stamps.

And our domestic shipping is kinda expensive: often cheaper to buy internationally...

An example of a place where stamp and coin sales provide a significant revenue stream is the Falkland Islands. Despite being tiny, there's a post office there that sells commemorative stamps and coins[0]. It does brisk business every time a cruise ship pulls in to town, with very few of those stamps or coins expected to be used for their supposed purpose: "The presentation of any collector coins for redemption is unlikely as the selling prices and precious metal values exceed face value"[1].

[0] https://www.falklandstamps.com/

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120118140540/http://www.falkla...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Falkland_Island...

I've come to the conclusion that anything sold as collectable, won't be. It'll be produced with such a massive supply that there'll be zero rarity value, so when demand dries up in later years it'll be worth much less than what you paid, or be worthless.

Yes. Collectible stuff always seems to be stuff one never thought would be collectible.

Even if something is overproduced, if it wears out over time or is eliminated through attrition, eventually it will be valuable if demand doesn't go away. The comic book collection thrown out by parents is proverbial, as well as the cheap sports car owned by young people who trash them. There's a TRS-80 computer I wish I still had, but at some point it was decided that it was worthless...

I rue the day I got rid of my H-11 computer :-/

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