I have no idea why, I just find it very hard to bring myself to collect anything used. I started off that way, after all. I soaked tons of stamps off of envelopes when I was a kid and hinged them into albums. Today, I just can’t do it. I know, I’ve tried. I just don’t understand what the problem is, although I might have some ideas.
So let’s discuss it.
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.
This has been rolling around in my head for a very long time and now and then, it pops up. I suppose I’ve covered some of it in my discussions on stamp NFTs, but two recent things happened and I wanted to talk about it in more detail.
First, a discussion on a stamp forum about the USPS just packing it in because they provide terrible service, which I absolutely agree with, and secondly, I’ve started watching a UK-based coin channel, mostly because I get bored, called Christopher Collects. He’s the YouTube face for a UK coin dealership and in a lot of those videos, they bring up what I have a problem with.
However, we’ll get into both of those things in more detail below. See you there.
Now I’m not trying to say that the people over at Stamp Show Here Today are wrong, but… yeah, I think they’re wrong. They had an episode a week or so ago (just heard it over the weekend) on bad stamp collecting advice.
Sorry, I think a lot of bad advice is coming from the podcast.
They just sent a survey, which I took, about a lot of issues facing the American Philatelic Society and how I use it. I’m happy to help so I went through and dutifully answered all of their questions, but in so doing, I realized a couple of things.
Mostly, I realized just how little the APS actually does that I care about. Let’s talk about it.
Love Alan Turing but the coin is a complete waste of time.
It doesn’t really matter, but I had a discussion recently with a friend who does YouTube videos. He collects coins primarily, although he also collects some stamps and we were talking about our individual interests. I knew it would cause consternation, but I said it anyhow.
I’m really not impressed with the way a lot of people collect coins.
One person doing that in the stamp world is The Digital Philatelist. So let’s see where he keeps making such a fool of himself.
This is a sad state of affairs, when people can’t even come to grips with the problem at hand. It came up earlier today when, in a discussion, I brought up the fact that it is virtually impossible to get modern worldwide stamps from dealers anymore. Nearly the past 30 years of stamps are a gigantic black hole with very few exceptions. If we can’t count on stamp dealers to keep supplying collectors, this hobby is going nowhere but down.
And I was surprised how many people got upset at the idea!
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.
If anyone has been out in the world of stamp collecting lately, you’ll know that there’s been a lot of talk about modern post offices putting out NFTs of their stamps. It’s very limited at the moment and thankfully so, it’s desperately trying to make money by doing anything but the actual job that the post offices exist to do.
What else is new, right? But here’s why this isn’t a part of philately, even though there are a few voices that are adamant that it is. Here is why they are simply wrong.
