I know that virtually nobody reads this blog, mostly because I never advertise it, so perhaps I’m just talking to myself, but I’ve been thinking lately and I wanted to see what others thought, if anyone ever sees this at all.

First though, I need to talk about YouTube and that might also spawn another entirely separate post about YouTube stamp channels and my thoughts on them specifically, but for now, we’ll just talk generally.

See me below the fold for more.

It’s a known fact that the philatelic findings on YouTube are few and far between. There are some excellent channels out there that I like (Graham at Exploring Stamps and Lisa at Stampcat, I’m looking at you), but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good content that I think helps collectors or tells the newly interested how to get started. I positively cringe every time I see a stamp channel handling mint stamps with their fingers. I have to close my eyes every time I see them using drug store tweezers on stamps. Granted, it’s their property and they can do what they want, I don’t think a lot of them recognize the influence they’re exerting on impressionable collectors who don’t know any better and who think that the guy on YouTube probably does.

That was when I started to kick around the idea that maybe, I should put together a small YouTube channel on the basics of stamp collecting. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject, but at least when I was growing up and getting into stamps, there were plenty of philatelists around, lots of local stamp shops, lots of stamp shows, all of which were happy to help out a new collector and show them the ropes. I think that kind of thing really needs to exist today and, at least in my experience, it really doesn’t. I see so many people foundering around, trying to create content for other poeple that are likewise foundering around and I don’t know that it’s really helping a lot of people get going.

Therefore, I had a handful of ideas for some videos that both explain how to do things and why we do it that way. It’s intended to be educational, to help the beginners along.

Unfortunately, we also live in a world where people can and do say “you can’t tell me what to do!” in the most childish way possible. I don’t typically see that from viewers on a lot of channels, although I do see that attitude from some of the content creators and that would be the subject of another video perhaps, but best practices exist for a reason. They exist because they work. If you don’t care how things work, why in the world are you on YouTube watching stamp educational content?

Here’s the point where I would ask people to comment on the idea. I might transfer this post to places where more stamp collectors might see it, who can tell? Do you think such a thing is necessary? Do you think anyone would watch? Even the channels that exist, outside of Exploring Stamps, they have few subscribers but they aren’t aimed at the same kind of market that I’m going after. I’m still working out all of the logistics of it, if I do it at all, but it would be nice to have some input.

If you have any, let me know in the comments.