The stickier points of stamp collecting

It's a sticky problem.

Stamp collecting has been documenting Canada's postal history since the mid-1800s but technology and glue are threatening the old hobby.

It's one of the oft-discussed topics at the annual stamp show, held Saturday at Woodman Park Community Centre.

"Self-sticking stamps are ruining the hobby for collectors, said Jacqueline Cowper at the show.

The primary employee at the postal office in Dell Pharmacy, Cowper deals with a lot of collectors and she hears their complaints "all the time."

The sticky stamps are designed to stay firmly on an envelope so that users can't peel them off and re-mail them if they aren't cancelled but the glue has become the bane of collectors who, for decades, have easily soaked stamps off envelopes with nothing more than water.

"But there's a balance because other people who are doing mass mailings really like the self-sticking stamps because they don't have to lick them," said Cowper.

While some collectors get around the problem by purchasing special mint sheets that show the same collectible stamps without a sticky back, others have investigated methods to separate the stamps from their envelopes.

Carbon tetrachloride is one method, said Grant Reavely, but it comes with a warning.

"It's toxic, but I've heard it's the only way to dissolve the glue."

In the US, some have resorted to a chemical called Bestine and various lemon-flavoured aerosols.

But Cowper said her "best collector customer" has come up with a simpler dissolution solution.

Walter Hopfinger of Brantford, who collects British Colonial stamps, says he soaks the self-sticking stamps in hot water in the kitchen sink for about 20 minutes and then laboriously peels away the stamp from it's glue, trying to leave the now-white gum on the envelope.

"It takes a lot of patience, but you don't want to destroy that beautiful stamp," Hopfinger said.

The sticky problem has grown into a world-wide trend with many countries embracing the self-sticking stamp and many collectors can't be bothered dealing with the adhesive.

Those that love the stamps and hate the glue can still collect, says Hopfinger.

"If you have difficulties, cut around the stamp and put it in your album as it is," he advises. "It's still beautiful."

Stamp club president Bob Anderson said part of the goal of the stamp show is to get people involved in the interesting hobby.

While the club has always encouraged kids to participate with stamp giveaways and special contests, it also works to catch the interest of those in their 40s or 50s who have rediscovered a passion for the tiny collectibles.

"Kids are interesting because they're young and think outside the box, said Anderson. But people in their late 40s and early 50s have their kids leaving the house and are looking for something to do. They have the disposable income to collect."

All a someone needs to do to get the bug is to zero in on an interest in the hobby and there will be stamps to satisfy the need to collect, whether they are from a particular country, an era, a type like errors or postmarks --or an explicit topic like trains, dogs, famous people or sports.

One young collector, Amy Trakalo, 11, won the award for best junior exhibit at the show with a display on cats from around the world.

While the club also sells stamps at the ongoing meetings, the show gives collectors a much wider inventory to examine and, said Anderson, everyone tends to find some little gem that's perfect for their collection.

"It doesn't matter what the cost is as long as it's valuable to them," Anderson said, indicating that the collectibles can range from 10 cents to $250.

The Brantford show is always the first one of the new year in this area of Ontario, so plenty of patrons are out spending a bit of Christmas money on themselves. This year visitors were from Chatham, Waterdown, London, Kitchener, St. Catharines and Port Dover, although nasty weather on Saturday kept some from the Toronto area away.

The club meets on the first and third Tuesday nights of each month plus there's a Junior Stamp Club that meeting at the police station on Elgin Street on the third Saturday morning of each month from September to May.

"The meetings are always open to the public and drop-ins are welcome," said Anderson. He noted that at the evening meetings, teens younger than 16 should be accompanied by an adult.

The next meeting of the club is a sales circuit night offering stamps from members for sale, and there will be dealers, a silent auction, and guest presentations.

For more information, go to www.brantfordstamp.org.

Source: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2921995

Stamp collectors search for treasures at Clarksville Indiana show

A small but avid crowd of stamp collectors made it to the annual Southern Indiana-Louisville Area Stamp Collectors Marketplace at the Holiday Inn in Clarksville, Ind., over the weekend.

Dedicated philatelists pored over boxes and binders filled with stamps during the show on Saturday and Sunday, looking for the perfect ones to add to their collections.

Don Dillon, 80, said he has been collecting stamps off and on for about 60 years.

“I guess I have around 7,000 stamps,” he said. “That's really rather a modest collection.”

He said he prefers to focus on stamps that are no longer produced.

“They keep putting out so many new issues that it's almost impossible to keep up with them,” he said. “I focus on the pre-cancels. They don't really make new ones so it's easier to keep up.”

Some collectors look for particular countries or images, while others look for stamps within a theme.

Karl and Rosemarie Leasure searched for stamps related to World War II or having a military theme.

Karl, 69, has been collecting stamps since he was an 8-year-old boy in Germany.

“I buy the historic stamps and sell them at the gun show,” he said. “People go nuts for the World War II stamps. I always tell my customers I will turn them into stamp collectors yet.”

Another collector, Ernie Julian, 58, said “A collection is never finished.”

He said he has been collecting stamps since his grandmother started him in the hobby at age 9.

“I come to this show every year,” he said. “I never miss it.”

Julian owns two large U.S. collections and a six-volume citation foreign collection. But the pride of his collection is the U.S. portion of his worldwide zeppelin stamp collection.

“The money you put into it, you never lose,” he said of stamp collecting. “It's like putting money in the bank.”

While the stamps may not lose value, some of the vendors at the event indicated they probably wouldn't increase a lot, either.

“The market has been pretty flat since the 1980s,” said John Findling, a partner with Collector's Stamps Ltd. in Louisville since 1979.

“The hobby is changing,” he said. “The Internet is changing the way people collect. And fewer and fewer people are getting into the hobby.”

Ed Davidson, owner of Davidson's Stamp Service in Indianapolis, agreed.

“A lot fewer kids are getting into the hobby, which is a shame,” he said. “Kids get introduced to it and it's all fun and games, but they actually learn something along the way.”

He said he finds the hobby to be a great stress reliever, saying, “At some point along the way to adulthood, you find out there's an awful lot of stress out there.”

When he began looking for a way to relax, he remembered his childhood stamp collection and asked his mother to ship it to him.

“It became a passion,” he said.

Source: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110109/NEWS02/301100018/Stamp+collectors+search+for+treasures+at+Clarksville+show

The Queens Head is Saved! British Government Decision

This is a follow up to our story http://stampcollectingresources.blogspot.com/2010/12/off-with-her-head-queen-to-be-taken-off.html

Thank goodness the British Government acted quickly on this - can you imagine a GB stamp without the Queens head? Well I hope to be alive to see Prince Charles, or King Charles, as he will be known - one day!

Queen Elizabeth has appeared on postage stamps since 1967. Now Britain plans to privatize the Royal Mail. That caused fears that some foreign buyer could remove the queen from stamps. The government says it will add a condition to the sale: Elizabeth stays on stamps.

If you wish to leave a comment, we'd be delighted to hear from you - just fill out the form below.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132800509/uk-to-make-sure-queens-head-stays-on-stamps

Sacramento's California aging stamp collectors keep the faith

Scarcity sells in stamp collecting. The older and less plentiful the specimen, the more it gets philatelists' hearts aflutter and sends interest and price soaring.

But when it comes to the demographics of this noble, if a tad fusty, hobby, a scarcity of younger enthusiasts – those yet to be targeted by the AARP – is cause enough to get dealers and collectors to look up from their magnifying glasses and take notice.

"Look around," said Jim Leer, 68, of Oroville, waving an arm around the room of balding gray pates bowed over bins at the Sacramento Stamp Fair on Saturday morning at the Knights of Columbus Hall. "Where are the young kids? Show me one. Wait, there's one – Gary. He's been a dealer for 25 years. That qualifies as the new guy around here."

Kidding aside, one might think that stamp collecting is in danger of being canceled out and shipped to the dead-letter office of popular hobbies. These days, young people are more apt to collect e-mails – or texts and tweets – than something so quaintly 20th century as stamps. Gee, Gramps, you mean people actually licked the backs of these things, stuck 'em on envelopes, put them in a box, and it took days to arrive someplace else?

Philatelist A. Keith Kaufman, 55, whose booth featured stamps from the British Colonial period selling for hundreds of dollars, says the future of stamp collecting is in Europe and Asia. The United States, he says, is not fostering the tradition. He blames the advent of electronic communication. He laments that kids just aren't exposed to the aesthetic pleasure of a finely designed stamp.

"There too many other distractions, like video games," says Kaufman, who lives in Southern California. "I don't see the end of the line for stamp collecting. But we have very little outreach to younger people, particularly on the West Coast.

"I gave a couple of talks a few years ago to my daughter's classes in Los Angeles, and the kids get really excited. They learn about history and geography. To this day, there are about 10 kids who still collect stamps. It's all about exposure."

Those hoping that stamp collecting might be subject to a retro revival among hip 20-somethings – à la knitting – admit it's a long shot.

But longtime dealer Bill Hontos, of the Oceanview Stamp Co. in Huntington Beach, says that once the younger generation ages, they might better appreciate the quiet satisfaction that comes from finding a precious stamp from long ago and far away.

"I've been doing this 25 years, and it's always been that way," Hontos said. "They might pick it up as kids, have a little beginning collection, then put it away for a while because they've discovered girls or have to work. Then, as they get older, they have more leisure time, and they'll pick up (the hobby) again."

Hontos says nearly all of his dealings with younger (under 50) collectors come via e-mail and Internet queries – "I guess there's a little irony in that," he says, ruefully – but the rarer stamps have drawn interest from young and old alike strictly as investment options.

"People like having their money invested in something like this, especially with currency discrepancies," he said. "There (are fewer) sales at the shows like this, but more on the Internet, especially overseas."

Despite their aging ranks, sales among stamp collectors have risen 89.7 percent since 2000, according to Stanley Gibbons, the world's top stamp dealership, based in London.

Prices of the rarest stamps, Stanley Gibbons reports, have risen 38 percent since 2008.

That could be one reason why dealers such as Leer are able to joke about the graying of stamp enthusiasts.
"The business is alive and kicking, even though the average age of the collector is 72," Leer said. "Listen, a collector who comes to these fairs is willing to spend about $1,000 (on stamps). You really think young people today have got that to spend?"

Indeed, 71-year-old hobbyist Don Parker of Folsom said he was happy not to have to elbow around youngsters with baggy pants and music leaking out of their headphones in order to find stamps issued by Pakistan shortly after it was partitioned from India in 1947.

"It's fascinating," Parker said. "Pakistan didn't have time to issue its own stamps, so it just printed the word 'Pakistan' over India's stamps. That's what I'm looking for."

Parker ended up not finding anything worth buying. But that's OK. Stamps are only one of his retro passions. He also collects typewriters.

Source:  http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/09/3310375/sacramentos-aging-stamp-collectors.html