Stamp collections are fetching whopping prices, but clubs need new members | Hacker News Reader

Stamp collections are fetching whopping prices, but clubs need new members

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36 pointsadrian_mrd67 comments

What they really mean is that they need a new generation of Greater Fools to sell their collections to, otherwise the value of their collections will completely deflate.

I've seen this exact same discussion on comic book boards that I frequent, where some collectors worry that Golden Age and Silver Age comics may drop in value because they don't have as much meaning to newer collectors, who buy Modern comics for different entirely reasons. It's kind of a funny discussion to me, since they are literally trying to keep a Ponzi scheme going at the expense of younger people and new collectors.

In my experience, people don't collect stamps in the hopes of making a killing via a "Ponzi Scheme."

They collect stamps because the hobby brings them joy and satisfaction. Even if they are mocked by others who don't understand how they could enjoy such a thing.

It is not necessary to attribute to ulterior motives to what can be explained simply by different interests.

I'm sure there are aging collectors who mistakenly think they are leaving a stamp collection that could be of financial value to their children, but it is likely that they also have the wistful albeit unlikely hope that someone of the next generation might take up the hobby that has given them pleasure.

This is how I feel about collecting books. I have a nice collection of illustrated books from the Yellow Nineties. They are not a path for financial independence, but they are beautiful.

That you describe doesn't lead to "whopping prices".

And if there haven't been collectible pumpers in your hobby before (a doubtful claim), it's all the more attractive for them to be the first.

> since they are literally trying to keep a Ponzi scheme going at the expense of younger people and new collectors.

It's not technically a Ponzi scheme since (from what I've seen) the comics are (at least nominally) presented as something you would want to own for the sake of owning them, rather than solely as a investment vehicle. Compare houses, which exist for the purpose of living in, while property appreciation is (supposed to be) at best a nice side effect. (Although unlike housing, there's no strong reason to apply felony penalties to using comic books as a investment vehicle.)

Apparently the same thing has happened with Elvis memorabilia. It's the natural cycle of collectibles. People start dying and flooding the market at the same time that demand dries up

Stamp collection is one of those things that belongs to an particular period of change where things lined up to make it accessible and exiting at the same time, as the post war economy saw an book in people flying of to exotic destinations and sending postcards back to family and friends as Instagram and Facebook had yet to be invented. That faded as the exotic abroad became less exotic.

Today you don't even need a actual stamp to sent an letter using the actual mail(see https://www.postnord.se/en/sending/letters-and-postcards/por... for example) so the hobby is bound to become more expensive and lets be honest what was the last time you got an postcard or for that matter an letter not sent by an bulk mailing operation containing boring bills or official documents.

Whoa, not sure what kind of folks you have around you and relationships with them, but when we travel (or on christmas, easter, etc) we send postcards to our closest friend and family. So do they.

Its personal, I always draw little figures of me and my wife on the picture side, climbing mountains, swimming from sharks, paragliding etc. depending on situation.

My parents have them all on the wall, so do some friends (well not all of them). Its a small gift, showing we think about them not only by bombarding them with photos/videos all the time.

Its a nice tradition, the best kind of mail you can get, and I see no reason stopping it.

I agree! It's nowadays even a more special occasion to receive a postcard than it used to be. I make sure to send one from all my holidays for my grandparents and godchildren (which itself is a nice tradition, no need to be part of a church or make it religious -- kids love having their own uncle/aunt).

It does sounds like a nice tradition, but as a mid 30s American living on the coasts, I have never sent or received a postcard, nor seen one of my friends do it when we go on trips.

It's certainly far less common than it used to be. Ditto for Christmas cards; I think maybe I get them from three people who aren't businesses that get money from me and often don't get around to sending any myself.

I agree, I always love sending postcards when I travel. Its a shame that 99% of the physical mail any of us receive is trash.

Particularly traveling internationally there will always be something awesome about being able to mail a postcard and give the recipient a little piece of the place where you're visiting.

I find the trajectory between model railways and stamps sort of similar, in both cases they are linked to a phenomenon that has diminished from the popular view quite significantly and as such they as hobbies have waned also. Trains are not really the icon they were 50-100 years ago, nor are people interacting with stamped mail anymore.

Ham radio is sort of another hobby that kinda falls into the same category, although maybe for slightly different reason? But there too, just talking to random/local people kinda lost its luster; people barely even make phone calls these days anymore.

I personally try to collect nothing. I essentially "collect" two things 1) stocks 2) personal digital photos

Every material thing you own can weigh you down. I try to make sure I use everything I own vs owning things just for the pleasure of owning them.

I have pre kindle books that I wish I could convert to kindle.

I wrote amazon suggesting I give them my books for free, then they give me the digital copy at a discount (maybe 50%?) At some point I might buy the kindle versions and then sell the books to a used bookstore (at 25%).

The problem is if someone somewhere doesn't look after physical things that we can't replace... who will? Individuals can delegate it to others, but someone has to do it (if we want to keep historical things at all.)

Different US States do provide this function... One of the best (and the first 1901) is Alabama https://archives.alabama.gov/

That's a great point. For example, I recently got back into film photography and I found that if you want to get a 40-year-old camera today, you'll probably be buying it from a collector. Without them, these wonderful, obsolete tools would have gone in the landfill long ago.

There are definitely cameras that fall into the collectible category. But I would have thought that 1980-era DSLRs were still pretty available from used camera stores. (I haven't personally checked; maybe run-of-the-mill film cameras son't move quickly enough.)

Duh. Not DSLRs of course. It's too ingrained at this point.

Good point! And there are many fantastic film cameras from long ago. I just bought a Nikon F2 film camera (my second) yesterday. Many of those old film cameras and such a joy to shoot with.

Books are a nightmare when moving home. I see people with full bookshelves and I pity them. It's not like they read all the books either

I've slowly been trying to work down the amount of stored paper, including books, in my house. I haven't moved in a long time but, earlier in my life, I definitely put way too much effort into moving books and other heavy things from place to place.

I recently dumped nearly all of my university papers and textbooks. That's one less solid box of tree that I need to lug from place to place only to forget about for half a decade at a time.

"It's not like they read all the books either"

Not sure how you would come to this conclusion without knowing every person with a book collection. I know quite a few bookphiles that have read every single book on every shelf.

I have many shelves of books. There's a few reference books that I haven't "read" because nobody sits down to read a CRC Handbook; a few textbooks I haven't read because they were aspirational purchases that are difficult to make time for; a dozen or so novels that will definitely get read in the next two years. If I don't like a novel enough to re-read it, it goes into a box, and gets returned to the next used bookstore I visit.

> It's not like they read all the books either

The point of having a library (personal or otherwise) is not to read every one of the books cover to cover. Knowing where to find a particular book and how to look up what you need inside is incredibly valuable. (Indeed, many books become less useful to keep around after you have read them)

You're right that material things can weigh you down. However, in the case of stamps they're probably one of the smallest and lightest physical items one can collect.

However, they aren't stored in an optimal packing, because that would ruin the stamps. They're stored in binders, increasing their weight and volume more than tenfold.

Yeah 10 times a small number is still small.

If you have a one-stamp collection, you're absolutely right. But collectors often end up with many boxes of binders.

Element collecting, as practiced by Bill Gates, might be the lowest. Although collectors tend to horde 10^23 items more than needed.

> Every material thing you own can weigh you down.

Material things can also bring you...pleasure (to use your own word).

Of course, there's a balance and it's horses for courses, but I think a lot of people would feel that limiting their ownership of "things" to only those that have utilitarian value would make life far less interesting if not outright dull.

In the case of books, I enjoy the tactile sensation of a physical book, and find that physical books are easier on my eyes.

I love physical books too (and for the same reasons).

There is definitely a top-down cultural push to encourage regular people to stop owning things.

We were told we'll own nothing and we'll be happy about it.

I can't help but suspect that there is too much evolutionary programming to own resources for that to be a reality.

That's just so they can charge subscription fees.

One day I'll figure out if my Youtube Music subscription cost more than I would have spent on buying all my music.

I'm a bit torn with music streaming services. I probably subscribe more for the playlists and ability to try someone new than the music collection. I have a big collection, ripped and downloaded, but I decided it was too much trouble to systematically fill it out and curate it--at least for now.

YouTube Music, Spotify or Apple Music (whichever one you prefer) is definitely worth it to me.

I listen to so much music from so many different artists all of the time. I could never afford to buy all of that music in a long long time. And Apple Music, just like Spotify that I used to use before it, helps me discover new music all of the time.

Also, streaming music from service like these, is much more convenient than owning the music. More convenient than piracy even.

I find, just for me personally, there is not more than 1-2 new songs I want to listen to per month. Buying the songs saves a few bucks (not a noticeable amount in my monthly budget to be honest) and also more directly funds the artist compared to streaming.

I've listened to 6000 songs by 1500 different artists in the last year, and that's a drastic undercount due to offline listening and youtube viewing that isn't reported to last.fm.

Buying music can't compete with that. Just sourcing the downloads would be a huge burden.

> I personally try to collect nothing.

Have you seen the movie "Up in the Air"? Your comment reminded me of the speech George Clooney gave :)

I collect comic books, and I collect limited edition rock n roll photos.

I do have a vast collection of digital comics, probably 250GB worth, but I also want the joy of actually owning some of them, looking at them, and reading them.

Bullion's a decent thing for grownups to collect. ROI isn't great, but it's not nothing, won't go to zero when a generation of enthusiast dies, and there are some beautiful coins out there.

I agree, and I think it's somewhat generational. My dad is now on social security, but he will stop at any yard sale. Or talk for hours about trying to get some piece of furniture from an acquaintance. His house is full of cheap crap I'm going to have to haul away.

You're an outlier, not the general population.

The general population tends towards hoarding, not away from it.

(or maybe, you're just digitally hoarding now)

I'm involved with an online stamp store for collectors. We estimate the average age of our customers is 70. The business has been around for 30+ years; a big contributor to customer attrition is death. I can't imagine the hobby surviving for another generation.

probably eerie parallels at the model train store

It will survive. Years ago I would never have imagined walking into a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (American chain restaurant with a shop that sells novelties) and finding vinyl records and even record players. The selection includes stuff from thirty years ago and brand new stuff, like Disney soundtracks-these are interesting because they do color art on the front of the vinyl itself and sell it in a clear plastic sleeve.

Nostalgia and the yearning for physical objects are powerful things. Pair that up with the Internet and its ability to unite far-flung niche communities and yeah, I have no doubt at all that stamp collecting survives.

This headline is quite inaccurate.

Most stamp collections are worth a pittance, and worth far less than was spent on building them in the heyday of stamp collecting.

The hobby mostly died out a couple of decades ago. Just a few diehards, and - as the article gets right - they are generally old.

It's hard to imagine stamp collecting not dwindling as a hobby over time given that email and other digital communication has supplanted almost all personal letter writing. In the absence of that, there's so little emotional attachment left to physical mail and stamps that few will care to collect them.

Everything is fetching whopping prices. There's just too much money around.

While somewhat true in general, there isn't a lot of evidence in the article in support of the headline. Some high-end stamp collections have fetched good prices. OK.

But at least for the population the article is talking about, interest is dwindling. And it's hard for me to believe that, in general, either stamp or coin collecting has the mainstream appeal that it once had.

The world can't seem to get enough objects of pure speculation these days. But "seem" is crucial here.

My grandfather recently died and left behind collections that we sold off. When you spend your life collecting things you really do build yourself around it. I was very excited and volunteered to take his national geographic collection until I realized that it would essentially take two entire rooms full of boxes with no walking space. His coin and stamp collections were also massive, heavy filing cabinets. Even selling them off is a massive chore, much less going through them to try and see where to continue it.

> Even selling them off is a massive chore

There are people who will give you a price to buy collections that you don't want to take the time to carefully catalogue for appraisal.

Both you and them take a risk on the price being right, but then you save a lot of time.

> Even selling them off is a massive chore, much less going through them to try and see where to continue it.

Contrary to what people want to believe 99.99999% of all those collections are priced per lb or kilo.

My dad has one of those big coin collections. There are maybe a dozen or so coins in the whole thing that are really worth anything. The rest is several physical tons of 'that is going to take awhile to go through' and 'hey dad your retired why dont you sort your coins, oh I am leaving that to you'.

I personally try to keep my physical collections small. Only a few items that I consider interesting I keep. Except my DVD collection, video games, and my wifes CD collection. I like them so I keep those. But if I stopped caring about it I would take an active interesting in getting rid of it. I do not want to burden someone else with my collection of junk. My personal coin collection if you went and spent it as cash I would be a bit upset but no real value would have been lost. The 50 or so coins I have are merely novelty not valuable and fit in a plastic cup.

Stamps are 1900s' NFTs.

Incorrect: stamps have a very distinct use. NFTs are just humongous numbers that are metaphorically associated with some.... thing.

Stamps had a function, now they are mostly decorative.

You can print postage with unique number. Stamps are just one method for postal service to identify your package and its payment and transportation mode.

US stamps of today seem to be far less decorative (talking about the design on the stamp itself) than ones I've seen from days gone by.

Stamps are fungible tokens though. The whole point of NFTs is they're non-fungible tokens - that's what the N stands for.

In terms of collecting, stamps are nonfungible. They are individually graded for the centering of the image, the condition of the perforations, the condition of the gum, and sometimes the novelty of the cancellation (if it's used). The price of a stamp is based both on the rarity of the stamp in general and on the grading of the particular stamp. When you buy a stamp, you're buying the exact pictured stamp[0], not a fungible equivalent.

[0] Usually. Sometimes people will buy "spacefillers" where they don't care about the quality, they just want something cheap to put in the spot in their collection. These are often unpictured and you get whatever the dealer sends you. These could be considered fungible.

An uncancelled stamp is technically fungible, but a cancelled stamp is, well, funged. It never ceases to amuse me that this can increase the stamp's value.

Uncancelled ("mint") stamps are still individually graded for centering, gum, and perforation. This probably matters less on modern stamps (vs. classic stamps) but nobody collects modern stamps.

Canada had a renewed interest in stamp collecting among young people in the late 1980s after the TV movie Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller came out. But it died out pretty quickly as Canada Post switched to printed stamps, and as kids grew out of it.

I run the biggest international collectors show for my hobby and we always talk about the average hair color and old age.

I think that there are a couple big reasons for this. I think there is definitely an issue with less discretionary income for younger people to spend on collecting.

But I also think that there is a bit of a shift in the information that’s out there. Everything’s catalogued and priced and researched and it can just be really overwhelming for someone new to fit into expectations.

Whenever some collectible is "fetching whopping prices", your first question should be if someone is buying from themselves.

Especially when the next sentence suggests the rise in interest may be illusory.

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