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Just to add some context for why the dealer probably acted that way. Stamp collectors for exploration are quite a bit different from the kinds of collectors th

Just to add some context for why the dealer probably acted that way. Stamp collectors for exploration are quite a bit different from the kinds of collectors that tend to go to stamp dealers (I am one of those collectors). You end up focussing on extremely narrow areas of the hobby to the point where you are hunting down which library has a painting a stamp is copied from or trying to track down an envelope sent by a particular person from a particular city. You can have 10 different variations of a stamp that look all the same except under a magnifying glass. There are collectors who have hundreds of thousands of dollars in their collections and all of the same single stamp. Just 1000 different copies of it. The premier component of my collection is an exhibit on the 1982 Canadian Philatelic Youth Issue, a single stamp series (about stamps). So for a lot of collectors (including the ones willing to spend thousands a year) it’s less an accumulation hobby and more a specific research project. Not excusing the behaviour of the dealers, but meeting someone who collected so widely could be unusual for them.

yannis 6y ago
I have collected stamps as a kid and I have been collecting Postal History for decades on and off, focusing mainly on research and writing up the covers that I have managed to collect. Kept me sane during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Philately is not about 'chasing madly a missing stamp', but a journey for those interested in history, especially local history. It is still a great hobby and to anyone interested to start, start from buying a small collection. Most collectors will either buy from a dealer, but most often from an auction. See https://stampauctionnetwork.com/ https://stampauctionnetwork.com/ as an example. You can build a collection with very little money or spent hundreds of thousands. It inspires me to hold an old letter (cover or wrapper in philatelic jargon), that has travelled through a ship across continents and has survived for 200 years and now is in my collection. Pre-stamp letters go for very little, especially North American, British and really for a song for most European countries. The bitcoin of the early eighties was 'getting into hard assets'. Lots of funds invested into stamps and drove prices to levels that collectors couldn't buy. They burnt their fingers, while collectors waited. It is still a huge market possibly 3-5 billion USD a year. As an investment I would not recommend them, but as a nice indoor hobby and to socialize outside your own circle is worth it.
mcguire 6y ago
The problem is that some of those collectors don't realize that there are any other ways of approaching a hobby. A while back on BGG, someone new dropped a question in a forum about designing a game based on a web comic. He was told immediately that he'd never make money, that he'd never be successful without more experience than he'd be willing to get, and to top it off, got a long lecture from one grognard about how the game---based on a comic---would be a total failure unless he dropped the concept and rebased it on said grognard's own ideas. The newbie concluded, rightly, that it wasn't a welcoming community.

yannis 6y ago

I have collected stamps as a kid and I have been collecting Postal History for decades on and off, focusing mainly on research and writing up the covers that I have managed to collect. Kept me sane during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Philately is not about 'chasing madly a missing stamp', but a journey for those interested in history, especially local history. It is still a great hobby and to anyone interested to start, start from buying a small collection. Most collectors will either buy from a dealer, but most often from an auction. See https://stampauctionnetwork.com/ https://stampauctionnetwork.com/ as an example. You can build a collection with very little money or spent hundreds of thousands. It inspires me to hold an old letter (cover or wrapper in philatelic jargon), that has travelled through a ship across continents and has survived for 200 years and now is in my collection. Pre-stamp letters go for very little, especially North American, British and really for a song for most European countries. The bitcoin of the early eighties was 'getting into hard assets'. Lots of funds invested into stamps and drove prices to levels that collectors couldn't buy. They burnt their fingers, while collectors waited. It is still a huge market possibly 3-5 billion USD a year. As an investment I would not recommend them, but as a nice indoor hobby and to socialize outside your own circle is worth it.

mcguire 6y ago

The problem is that some of those collectors don't realize that there are any other ways of approaching a hobby. A while back on BGG, someone new dropped a question in a forum about designing a game based on a web comic. He was told immediately that he'd never make money, that he'd never be successful without more experience than he'd be willing to get, and to top it off, got a long lecture from one grognard about how the game---based on a comic---would be a total failure unless he dropped the concept and rebased it on said grognard's own ideas. The newbie concluded, rightly, that it wasn't a welcoming community.