I doubt that anyone really cares, but I have been trying to watch a bunch of YouTube stamp collector videos of late and most of them, for one reason or another, I just don’t care for.

Therefore, I wanted to explain why so many of them are just not that valuable to me and what, I think, most of them can do better. I don’t know if it will help but here we go regardless.

So let’s start off with what I’m talking about. I’m not talking, necessarily, about the big groups. I mean the individual collectors. Groups like the APS, the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library, some Stanley Gibbons, etc., those groups put out generally decent videos, aimed at educating collectors and I’ll be honest, I think there needs to be more of that. In fact, during the pandemic, people who have been trying to get into stamp collecting, being able to learn about both the basic and advanced topics within the hobby, that’s really where I’ve suggested a number of people go to figure out what they’re doing.

No, I’m talking about the individual collectors who are out there putting out quality (or not very much quality) videos and while I’m not going to talk much about production value here, that’s another topic entirely, I do want to talk about content and presentation because I think it matters.

Let’s start with the good. Channels like Exploring Stamps, those are the top end as far as I’m concerned, not only with the type of content,  but with the production values involved. They exist to educate new collectors into interesting topics that may encourage them to expand their collecting interests. Graham has influenced a lot of other budding video makers to do similar things, such as Stampcat Stamps and I greatly enjoy Lisa’s content as well. It all exists to fill a particular niche of the collecting landscape and we’ll come back to that a bit later.

Then there are the people who aren’t really doing content that I find interesting. That’s not to say that it’s bad. It just isn’t educational. It doesn’t teach you anything. It’s mostly “hey, look at these pictures!” and nothing more. Into that, I group people like Mallard Stamps, Bob Collects Stamps and Ted Talks Stamps, among others. I have nothing against any of them but their videos tend to be “I got a bunch of kiloware, let’s dump it on a table and look at the pictures!” That’s fine in small doses, I guess, but it doesn’t actually teach anyone anything because the YouTuber doesn’t seem to really know much about any of it. There’s only so much “oohing” and “ahing” that I can take when it’s just a bunch of squares of paper on the table. What are they? When were they printed? What’s the story behind them? You get virtually none of that.

Now keep in mind that both Bob and Ted are improving and mostly, that was aimed at their older content, but still, I don’t think either of them are making much beyond “look at the pretty pictures!” level. As I said, some of that is fine, but there’s no reason behind any of it, just “here’s what I got!”

Here’s really where I have a problem of sorts. While Graham and Lisa (and others in a similar vein) are fantastic at what they do, it’s all aimed at rank amateurs, people who are either just into collecting or who are kicking the idea around. There’s nothing wrong with that but it leaves out a massive number of older, more experienced collectors. We can certainly appreciate the work that goes into these simple stories, there just isn’t a lot on the stamps themselves. Then you go the other way, the ones with the kiloware channels and those aren’t really appealing to the collectors so much as the accumulators. People who buy tons of stamps online, just for the joy of seeing the pretty pictures. That’s certainly another aspect to the hobby, but again, it leaves out the people who have moved farther on in our collecting journeys.

That’s where you get channels like the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library, who put out hour-long presentations on specific topics and those tend to be enjoyable, if a little dry. I get that part of it, mostly, these are presentations meant to be done in person, by people who don’t really understand how to make content for online viewing. In time, it’ll get better, hopefully, but the material is there at least, they just need to get  better at the presentation.

I think that online stamp content is at least headed in the right direction, it just needs a little kick to get somewhere great. If people would use Exploring Stamps as a model, they’d do just fine. It isn’t that difficult at all. You just have to know your subject matter and put it together in an interesting way and you’ll be fine. I wish the best of luck to them all for the future.