A childhood stamp album, still opened once every five years
The madman's guide to stamp collecting
A Wall Street Journal review of a book on stamp collecting drew a nostalgic response on Hacker News. One commenter recalled joining the USPO's 1800STAMPFUN program as a kid, filling a binder with collectable cards and stamps featuring Looney Tunes characters, monster movies, and heroes of the American Revolution and Civil War. The binder survives, and gets opened about once every five years.
I participated in USPO's 1800STAMPFUN as a kid and I loved it. The collectable cards and the unique stamps (looney tunes, monster movies, US Revolutionary and US Civil War heroes), all secured in my USPO stamp collecting binder. I still have it and look at it once every 5 years.
- bruce511
Stamp collecting in particular is a very good hobby. Where "good" is defined as "time consuming, pleasurable and cheap".
Well cheap to most of us. You can spend a lot if you want to, but you don't need to. But finding, and importantly organizing, makes for many restful hours.
My father was an avid collector and spent many hours cataloging his collection.
I will say though that as a whole, a collection (and indeed any collection, not just stamps) has almost zero net value. The cost of selling the collection dwarfs the collection value.
My advice to collectors is to have as much fun -selling- the bits in the collection (-especially- the valuable bits) before you pass. Do Not expect your heirs to sell it; they'll basically take pennies for it just to make it go away.
My father sold (or separated out) everything of value so we could dispose of the rest (basically donated to a dealer) with a clear conscience.
- righthand
I participated in USPO’s 1800STAMPFUN as a kid and I loved it. The collectable cards and the unique stamps (looney tunes, monster movies, US Revolutionary and US Civil War heroes), all secured in my USPO stamp collecting binder. I still have it and look at it once every 5 years.