Is stamp collecting boring

Answer 1

Not yet, people still do it. At one point it was the most popular hobby in the world. It has died off with the reduction in useage of mail as a primary communications mechanism. Older stamps are getting harder to find and more rare and the cost is climbing.

Answer 2

As unfortunate as it may be, stamp collecting and the science of philately are indeed on the decline. Yes, stamps have always been wonderful artworks and respresentatives of national cultures. On letters or packages, beautiful stamps often invited the receiver to accept the deliveries. Furthermore, they were always small, so they were easy to collect and store a mass of them. Yet, stamp collecting, especially among the youth is continuously waning due to lack of ongoing interest for them (or even exposure to them for that matter), which is bad because if any hobby is to survive, the next generation has to enthusiastically pick it up. So, once again, stamp collecting and philately is declining and may be dead in the near-future. There are many reasons for it, and they all seemed to have occurred more-or-less simultaneously. Here they are.

First, there is...dum, da, da, da...the internet and cellphones and email and webcams, just to start. Our advancement in telecommunications, makes it so easy and convenient to virtually see any place around the world as well as talk to someone on the other side of the globe, in addition to having much more local-connection ease. Stamps used to be among the windows to far-away places in the world. So, they were very interesting to view and keep (or collect). Now, you can virtually view anything on a computer with a click of a button, having many more windows to far-away places. Furthermore, very, very few people today write actual hardcopy letters to other people now, reducing the need for stamps in general too, and that reduces general interest in stamps. In our age of convenience, hardcopy letters are often unacceptably slow nowadays as well--hence again, no need for stamps.

Then, there are the postage meters and the prepaid covers. When it comes to sending a heavier letter or a package, the postage meter, quickly calculates how much you have to pay for delivery, and the receipt comes on a black-and-white label with a code to be attached to the delivered item. This reduces the need for stamps and with it, the general interest in them. And in many business and residential mailboxes, filled with bills and adds, the envelopes are almost always prepaid now, also heavily reducing the need for stamps, and with it (yep, you guessed it) the interest in stamp collecting. Both the label-receipts from postage meters and the prepaid envelopes are convenient and popular too in postage because they reduce work and time for the senders to mail their letters and packages.

Then, there is overproduction of stamps. In the past, there were only enough stamps that were needed for postage use only, making them interesting to collect a few of them too. However, now there are is a near-infinite variety of postage stamps, with a near-infinite number of featured people, places, things, subjects and topics on the stamps. Despite the general reduction of stamps in actual postage, the number of stamp types only exponentially increased in recent times. There is absolutely no fun in collecting anything if there is a near-infinite amount of them. If that was not enough, in this overproduction of stamps, they are now sold in sets. You may personally like only one or two in a set of fifteen to collect, but have to buy all fifteen to collect the one or two that you personally want. That is aggravating.

And finally, there are the new hobbies, so to speak, and the devotion to real value. Many people, especially the youth, now enjoy new hobbies, whether they would be playing computer games to storing more music on their pads or playing fantasy sports. Newer hobbies always crowd out older hobbies, forcing them to die off. Some older hobbies still remain strong and desirable for people of all ages from fishing to gardening to embroidery. However, in addition to stamp collecting, any hobby that involves collecting tangible items have declined, since personal space has become more valuable than ever nowadays, and careful devotion to time has never been more important. All this means that anything to collect must have at least some inherent value. Thus, at least some collecting hobbies have a safety net, like the collecting of coins, antiques or old artworks, since they all can have an immense history attached to them, and with it--value. Stamps have only been in existance, since 1840, and are now looking to only be a temporary fix in postage use, only to be replaced by something else in the near-future. Coins may have declined in usage, but they also can be made from gold and silver, securing at least some of their value too. Stamps are just paper.

These are the reasons why stam collecting and philately are on the decline, and why they likely will be dead. Stamp collecting is currently popular among well-off retirees, and the Internet has made searching for stamps and the purchase of stamps much easier. However, if you would go to a stamp show, and the vast majority of people there will be elderly, and there will never be a large number of young people interested in stamps ever again. Numerous stamp shops have closed down, over the past few decades; and many stamp dealers only buy and sell stamps in lots now. Only the rare stamps will ever have some value, attached to them, and they can be added to the collecting of old artworks with ongoing demand, even in the future. However, that would make stamp collecting for what they are...extinct. With the ongoing decline in stamps in postage, some countries are even experimenting with eliminating the need for stamps altogether. Though there are some people and organizations, who prefer to use stamps for sending mail with a personal touch, these stamps are always used up, and none are collected. Why not? I would hate to go to the post office to get more stamps to finish my lot of mail too.

So, after all this being said, this is the future of stamp collecting...decline and eventual death (except again for the rare stamps to be valued and collected as old artworks). It may be sad in some cases, but hobbies do decline and die out, but then new hobbies are born to replace them.

Answer 3

Certainly Not! It is fun because it is a portal to the vast cultures and history of civilization.