Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
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The term already exists. It is Philately. We need a different term for the mindset of people who DON'T have enough interest in a stamp's history to want to look at its development through printing, perforation, watermarking etc.
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The term already exists. It is Philately. We need a different term for the mindset of people who DON'T have enough interest in a stamp's history to want to look at its development through printing, perforation, watermarking etc.
I'm inclined to agree with my fellow-countryman on this one - though that places me firmly in the 'stamp-collector' taxonomy, as opposed to one whose hobby is 'philately'. That said, I hope Derek appreciates that there can be more to this hobby than the study of a stamp's technical development as he defines it. I want to know principally why a stamp was chosen for issue, and the circumstances affecting this decision. I'm also interested in the design and what it tells us about the purpose of a stamp, assuming that it has a purpose beyond that of paying for a letter. I regret to say that the technical issues of stamp production are not of interest to me, except perhaps for the art of the engraver of recess-printed stamps.
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Yeah, the hoary old "philatelist" vs "collector" debate rears its head yet again. Funny how these types of things always seem to divide up into not just different primary interests, but opposing attitudes as well - kind of like the way elitist Sheldon Cooper, the theoretical physicist, looks down on egalitarian Leonard Hofstedtler, the experimental physicist.
Ted
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Yeah, the hoary old "philatelist" vs "collector" debate rears its head yet again.
Oh well, that's that, then. No more to say, I gather.
But, Ted, it does rather cast you as a wise and experienced, if somewhat world-weary old gentleman dismissing irritating upstarts like Bamra, Winedrinker and Guthrum, with a wave of the hand.
Anyway, we seem to have derailed the original post entirely, as it has apparently disappeared from our screens. A great loss to philately. Or stamp-collecting - I'm not sure which category it actually fell into.
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Unlike you, guthrum, I have not dismissed anyone with a wave of the hand. I simply commented on the implication that someone is of an inferior class of hobbyist if they don't conform to someone else's ideal. But, you knew that, I'm sure. What I'm not sure of is why you decided to make me the villain in this piece, with spurious claims of actions against members I never mentioned in my reply.
Debate is always welcome; derision is not.
Ted
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Gentlemen,
Allow me to irritate you all. Both of your positions are to be respected, and the way that you choose to conduct your hobby is solely your choice and needs to be respected as such.In my particular way of addressing my collection habits, my wife looks down upon my endeavors as basically a waste of time-for you see I am an accumulator rather than a historian.
I do admire the historical pursuit and those who follow it, be it technical or history, but neither is my cup of tea. My wife would appreciate both the technical & historical approach, and I can't disagree with her there.
In your cases, you are getting close to becoming disagreeable rather than to disagree- or have I misread what you intended to convey? Being only an accumulator, I have many tales of interesting trades that might peak both your fancies- the one about trying to trade with a collector who collected only 1 stamp, in its' many varieties, comes to mind. Let me know if you'd care to hear about that.
Best,
Dan C.
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i was always a confused kid..i am a life member of the APS and yet deep down i am satisfied to be a collector-hoarder. To each his own..if a collector purchases only the stamp he needs and has no duplicates..thats fine, but its not the reason i go to a stamp sale.
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One hopes that biologists do not look down on butterfly collectors, and that butterfly collectors do not spend a lot of time imagining that they do.
Futile on both counts, you say?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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Is that not the beauty of collecting absolutely anything, stamps, coins, match book covers, etc. Collect what you want and how you want to collect it. Is there a rule book that tells us what or how to collect? Maybe I've just been missing that all these years. What I haven't missed is people demeaning the way others enjoy their collection. Get a life, go back to work on your own collection and leave the rest of us to do what we want with our own collections. Why do some people have to continuously stir the pots?
Mike
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Ohhhh...to be blissfully ignorant of all these things and to gather my stamps only for the personal enjoyment of it.
WB
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Love it, Ted
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Gads Seuss!
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I repeat:
"
Yeah, the hoary old "philatelist" vs "collector" debate rears its head yet again."
I would ask the more thoughtful of you what positive impression a reader might gain from this statement. Was it not careless, and dismissive? Has it not had the effect of closing down debate (and here you should look carefully at succeeding posts)?
The impression this writer gets is that what he has to share on SOR is of little interest to you. If what contributors offer is to be met with a sneer ("Yeah...") and a put-down ("yet again"), might they not think twice before returning to the DB?
I realise that there are many for whom 'debate' is not something they wish to engage with, at least on these boards. Perhaps most; and just possibly all?
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Does the "D" in DB stand for discussion or debate?
Personally, I think when intelligent discussion turns into a heated debate, it's time for all parties concerned to agree to disagree and move on to a more agreeable subject or get back to a discussion format on the topic at hand.
I can't see where a heated argument is any more beneficial then a complete dismissal of the entire matter.
Locking horns in an epic battle over personal approaches to a hobby just seems silly.
WB
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This is a pointless discussion. Most people that I know are neither a philatelist nor a (simple) collector - they fall into a point in a spectrum which has philatelist at one end and collector at the other.
In my case I collect all world so in philatelyspeak I should just be a "collector". However I collect postmarks, Machins ( and several other world definitive issues ) to an approaching specialist level, and have more than a passing interest in shades, perforations, watermarks and phosphors which move me quite some distance along the spectrum toward the philatelist end.
However I am also interested in the social,political and historical aspects of the stamps - so I suppose that makes me a social collecting-philatellical archivist !!
Malcolm
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One last effort at proper debate.
We need a different term for the mindset of people who DON'T have enough interest in a stamp's history to want to look at its development through printing, perforation, watermarking etc.
Ted reminds me that this was a potentially aggressive or divisive comment (those caps don't help), and I agree that it can be seen like that. However, certain comments above (and below!) seem almost wilfully to miss the point: Bamra is not (if I read him aright) dismissing all forms of stamp-collecting as inferior to the one he advances. He is suggesting that 'philately' covers those who wish to study differences other than just face-similarity accurately enough. There may be some point in offering a different term for other approaches, but on the other hand, you may detect a sardonic implication that there is not really much point in going further in this matter of taxonomies.
The debate is not whether how you collect is somehow 'better' than how I collect: it is simply whether there is any point in conjuring up names that might help us distinguish modes of collection.
Personally I seem to be lumbered in among the 'topical' collectors, which I don't find especially satisfactory, least of all when I see the topical displays at the big Stamp Shows, which are really just illustrated encyclopedia entries. But I am happy to agree that you are a philatelist if you think a bit about what you collect and how you collect it, and are prepared to exchange your thoughts on these matters.
I think that, with one possible exception, I am the only socio-historico-collector (with design elements) in SOR, and I do miss a bit of engagement with you philatelists out there. But would my strange fashion of collecting benefit from a distinctive name? I'm not so sure.
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The only True Philatelists are people who love revenue stamps, as that is the clear etymology of the word.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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We are too full of ourselves. The hobby needs every breathing participant. So don't go teeing folks off! 
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"Gads Seuss!"
Oh NO you didn't!!!
Holy crap, YES you DID!!!
The groans are audible from here in Kentucky!
Lars
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I certainly agree with Malcolm97 when he says:
"This is a pointless discussion."
And I hope Guthrum is being sincere when he states:
"One last effort at proper debate."
See, I also have an opinion and you all are entitled to it.
Mike
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We are all feeding the same desire, aren't we?
Just because your collecting extends to study and reporting doesn't demean a collector happy to fill gaps in a pre-printed album. They are not inferior, the student not elite.
We are all finding our own way to do the same thing, however we do it is entirely up to us.
Come one, come all I say.
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Please boys .. go to separate corners ,count to 10 and then cone back with a smile.....use to work in my classroom....lol
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"Please boys .. go to separate corners ,count to 10 and then cone back with a smile"
We've done that, Cheryl. All is well.
Ted
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To me it isn't an us vs them, but all of us are simply at various points on a continuum with extremely scholarly philatelists at one end of the spectrum and little kids with a small album, sticky fingers and a few envelopes full of stamps at the other extreme.
The best part - EVERYONE on that continuum is having FUN!
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I have no idea where on that spectrum I fall, but I do continually strive to attain the next level.
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Personally, I think of myself on both ends of the spectrum at the same time. I consider myself reasonably well versed in a few areas of US philately, but I recently started a world-wide topical collection and I am totally ignorant. But that's OK. I don't plan to ever rise above a "mere collector" in my topical. Nothing wrong with that!
Lars
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09:33:25pm
Okay, I will not be able to sleep peacefully if I do not toss my tuppence into the pot.
First, I reject any attempt to place my collecting habits at some spot on someone's arbitrary philatelic spectrum.
My collecting habits are quite eclectic.
Yes, I have a set of Minkus Supreme/Master Globals Albums (1840-1975) in which I try to fill in the printed spaces. And Yes, I have added many extra pages with some detailed series of varieties, especially shades and CDS/SOTNs.
And I also have many specific countries post-1975, more or less, in separate albums with stamps mounted on blank pages in general date order, at least by year.
My favorite is a large detailed collection in several binders of, usually, postally used Machins that consists of about 2,ooo or more different Machin stamps and covers illustrating specific usages..
To that there are a few binders containing issues of certain favored topics, a dozen separate binders holding interesting covers, some of which I have investigated quite deeply.
To that add an accumulation of postally used covers and cards either from or to, US and UK naval vessels, especially ships lost during WW II, and covers to or from Coast Guard Cutters or the many Coast Guard bases around the world. That excludes made for collectors, cacheted envelopes that did not carry a letter and may even have been prepared only for obsessive collectors long before or after a noted voyage.
There is an interesting assembilege of reference books and catalogs and a half dozen looseleaf binders holding copies of pages from philateliuc sourses fron the days when having a printer and internet access in every home was akin to dreaming of owning a Dick Tracy wrist radio.
There is also a large number of favorite duplicates safely tucked into the pouch of 102 storage boxe that at times I just enjoy riffing thruogh so I can physically hold these stamps in my lunch hooks.
So where do I fit on the spectrum, close to the serious philatelists studying trivial stamp varients, tracing covers back to their users and purpose or gadfly collector who fills spaces in a commercially prepared album ?
And I bet there are dozens of active members hiding in the eaves who are just like me.
In my computer files there are copies of all the more detailed, and I hope, informative comments I have made here and in several other on-line forums over the last ten or fifteen years.
The raw material of a book, perhaps?
If I am right about that last poiunt trying to place some identifying or ranking badge on my baseball cap is futile
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You're right Charlie! I consider myself at different spots on the spectrum, too, depending on what aspect of my collection I'm doing. I'm a kid with sticky fingers sometimes and when I'm flyspecking I'm more at the other end.
Nothing is an absolute - just using a spectrum as a way to visualize the multiple stages of collecting. The whole process is infinitely more complex than a simplistic us vs them type of description. There are always a million shades of gray and you're pointing that out quite eloquently.
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You know what is really funny about this thread? Most of you know that I am also involved with model railroading. You can take all the references to stamp collecting out of every one of these replies and replace it with model railroading terminology, and you'll have the exact same debate/discussion as occurs in that hobby. I'll even wager that every hobby has the exact same thing from the neophytes to the ultra specialists, and everyone thinking that their way is the best/only way.
Hobbies are for individuals to participate in and enjoy for themselves. We seek out others in our hobbies for a bit of camaraderie and to learn more to add to our enjoyment. However, 99% of the time our involvement in most any hobby is solitary. There is no "perfect" way to do anything other than the way that the individual hobbyist wants to do it. If one spends more time worrying about whether others will think that one is doing the right thing, then it is no longer a hobby but a chore. Sit back, relax and enjoy.
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"You know what is really funny about this thread? Most of you know that I am also involved with model railroading. You can take all the references to stamp collecting out of every one of these replies and replace it with model railroading terminology, and you'll have the exact same debate/discussion as occurs in that hobby. I'll even wager that every hobby has the exact same thing from the neophytes to the ultra specialists, and everyone thinking that their way is the best/only way."
Bingo! Same with the model car builders! And every hobby is screaming like Chicken Little that the sky is falling!
And there are factions based on what you build or collect. They'll sit at different tables at the club meetings. The big truck guys just sit and glare at the hot rod builders. It's actually funny!
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Another aspect to this conversation, is the venerable "hobby forum". For virtually every hobby, there's a host of related forums one can join. In some cases they have the power to make or break a hobby, or at very least, shape the future of it.
Among these hobby related forums, there are always the high minded ones that focus on what they believe is the best of the best. Newcomers and/or their questions are met with rude replies and an overall atmosphere that "the newbie is inferior". While these forums may be good for the elite, they do more damage then good, as far as promoting the hobby and if they were the only forums to exist, there would likely be far fewer newbies. Basically, they exist only for the benefit of themselves.
The forums that have the most positive effect on the hobby, are those that put every member on a level playing field. Those that show a genuine interest in every aspect of the hobby, have a friendly environment and are able to find the perfect balance of fun and games, along with the privilege of truly gifted and knowledgeable hobbyists, willing to help the newcomer to do and be better, without making them feel inferior with where they are in the hobby at the time. I don't know of any hobbyist, at any level, that doesn't want to get better at it.
These forums will also have the greatest amount of member involvement. Frank, yet fun discussion will draw members in like a bee to honey and snide off-handed remarks will push them away at virtually the same rate.
When it comes to hobbies, consider yourself what you will, but have the respect for those that choose to do the same. While the names may be different, the passion is typically the same.
WB
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If only it could be..i have relatives (mainly from my wifes side) Who are just at the top of their game..no one has to tell them they are smart or successful..and they would never tell you...but when we get together we speak in terms that everyone understands. So we all get along .
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A side discussion was beginning to take hold of the OP's contest, and has been split from the original thread.
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01:51:35pm
re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
The term already exists. It is Philately. We need a different term for the mindset of people who DON'T have enough interest in a stamp's history to want to look at its development through printing, perforation, watermarking etc.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
The term already exists. It is Philately. We need a different term for the mindset of people who DON'T have enough interest in a stamp's history to want to look at its development through printing, perforation, watermarking etc.
I'm inclined to agree with my fellow-countryman on this one - though that places me firmly in the 'stamp-collector' taxonomy, as opposed to one whose hobby is 'philately'. That said, I hope Derek appreciates that there can be more to this hobby than the study of a stamp's technical development as he defines it. I want to know principally why a stamp was chosen for issue, and the circumstances affecting this decision. I'm also interested in the design and what it tells us about the purpose of a stamp, assuming that it has a purpose beyond that of paying for a letter. I regret to say that the technical issues of stamp production are not of interest to me, except perhaps for the art of the engraver of recess-printed stamps.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Yeah, the hoary old "philatelist" vs "collector" debate rears its head yet again. Funny how these types of things always seem to divide up into not just different primary interests, but opposing attitudes as well - kind of like the way elitist Sheldon Cooper, the theoretical physicist, looks down on egalitarian Leonard Hofstedtler, the experimental physicist.
Ted
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Yeah, the hoary old "philatelist" vs "collector" debate rears its head yet again.
Oh well, that's that, then. No more to say, I gather.
But, Ted, it does rather cast you as a wise and experienced, if somewhat world-weary old gentleman dismissing irritating upstarts like Bamra, Winedrinker and Guthrum, with a wave of the hand.
Anyway, we seem to have derailed the original post entirely, as it has apparently disappeared from our screens. A great loss to philately. Or stamp-collecting - I'm not sure which category it actually fell into.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Unlike you, guthrum, I have not dismissed anyone with a wave of the hand. I simply commented on the implication that someone is of an inferior class of hobbyist if they don't conform to someone else's ideal. But, you knew that, I'm sure. What I'm not sure of is why you decided to make me the villain in this piece, with spurious claims of actions against members I never mentioned in my reply.
Debate is always welcome; derision is not.
Ted
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Gentlemen,
Allow me to irritate you all. Both of your positions are to be respected, and the way that you choose to conduct your hobby is solely your choice and needs to be respected as such.In my particular way of addressing my collection habits, my wife looks down upon my endeavors as basically a waste of time-for you see I am an accumulator rather than a historian.
I do admire the historical pursuit and those who follow it, be it technical or history, but neither is my cup of tea. My wife would appreciate both the technical & historical approach, and I can't disagree with her there.
In your cases, you are getting close to becoming disagreeable rather than to disagree- or have I misread what you intended to convey? Being only an accumulator, I have many tales of interesting trades that might peak both your fancies- the one about trying to trade with a collector who collected only 1 stamp, in its' many varieties, comes to mind. Let me know if you'd care to hear about that.
Best,
Dan C.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
i was always a confused kid..i am a life member of the APS and yet deep down i am satisfied to be a collector-hoarder. To each his own..if a collector purchases only the stamp he needs and has no duplicates..thats fine, but its not the reason i go to a stamp sale.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
One hopes that biologists do not look down on butterfly collectors, and that butterfly collectors do not spend a lot of time imagining that they do.
Futile on both counts, you say?
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Is that not the beauty of collecting absolutely anything, stamps, coins, match book covers, etc. Collect what you want and how you want to collect it. Is there a rule book that tells us what or how to collect? Maybe I've just been missing that all these years. What I haven't missed is people demeaning the way others enjoy their collection. Get a life, go back to work on your own collection and leave the rest of us to do what we want with our own collections. Why do some people have to continuously stir the pots?
Mike
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Ohhhh...to be blissfully ignorant of all these things and to gather my stamps only for the personal enjoyment of it.
WB
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Love it, Ted
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Gads Seuss!
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
I repeat:
"
Yeah, the hoary old "philatelist" vs "collector" debate rears its head yet again."
I would ask the more thoughtful of you what positive impression a reader might gain from this statement. Was it not careless, and dismissive? Has it not had the effect of closing down debate (and here you should look carefully at succeeding posts)?
The impression this writer gets is that what he has to share on SOR is of little interest to you. If what contributors offer is to be met with a sneer ("Yeah...") and a put-down ("yet again"), might they not think twice before returning to the DB?
I realise that there are many for whom 'debate' is not something they wish to engage with, at least on these boards. Perhaps most; and just possibly all?
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Does the "D" in DB stand for discussion or debate?
Personally, I think when intelligent discussion turns into a heated debate, it's time for all parties concerned to agree to disagree and move on to a more agreeable subject or get back to a discussion format on the topic at hand.
I can't see where a heated argument is any more beneficial then a complete dismissal of the entire matter.
Locking horns in an epic battle over personal approaches to a hobby just seems silly.
WB
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04:06:15pm
re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
This is a pointless discussion. Most people that I know are neither a philatelist nor a (simple) collector - they fall into a point in a spectrum which has philatelist at one end and collector at the other.
In my case I collect all world so in philatelyspeak I should just be a "collector". However I collect postmarks, Machins ( and several other world definitive issues ) to an approaching specialist level, and have more than a passing interest in shades, perforations, watermarks and phosphors which move me quite some distance along the spectrum toward the philatelist end.
However I am also interested in the social,political and historical aspects of the stamps - so I suppose that makes me a social collecting-philatellical archivist !!
Malcolm
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
One last effort at proper debate.
We need a different term for the mindset of people who DON'T have enough interest in a stamp's history to want to look at its development through printing, perforation, watermarking etc.
Ted reminds me that this was a potentially aggressive or divisive comment (those caps don't help), and I agree that it can be seen like that. However, certain comments above (and below!) seem almost wilfully to miss the point: Bamra is not (if I read him aright) dismissing all forms of stamp-collecting as inferior to the one he advances. He is suggesting that 'philately' covers those who wish to study differences other than just face-similarity accurately enough. There may be some point in offering a different term for other approaches, but on the other hand, you may detect a sardonic implication that there is not really much point in going further in this matter of taxonomies.
The debate is not whether how you collect is somehow 'better' than how I collect: it is simply whether there is any point in conjuring up names that might help us distinguish modes of collection.
Personally I seem to be lumbered in among the 'topical' collectors, which I don't find especially satisfactory, least of all when I see the topical displays at the big Stamp Shows, which are really just illustrated encyclopedia entries. But I am happy to agree that you are a philatelist if you think a bit about what you collect and how you collect it, and are prepared to exchange your thoughts on these matters.
I think that, with one possible exception, I am the only socio-historico-collector (with design elements) in SOR, and I do miss a bit of engagement with you philatelists out there. But would my strange fashion of collecting benefit from a distinctive name? I'm not so sure.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
The only True Philatelists are people who love revenue stamps, as that is the clear etymology of the word.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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Approvals
re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
We are too full of ourselves. The hobby needs every breathing participant. So don't go teeing folks off!
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
"Gads Seuss!"
Oh NO you didn't!!!
Holy crap, YES you DID!!!
The groans are audible from here in Kentucky!
Lars
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
I certainly agree with Malcolm97 when he says:
"This is a pointless discussion."
And I hope Guthrum is being sincere when he states:
"One last effort at proper debate."
See, I also have an opinion and you all are entitled to it.
Mike
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04:29:28am
re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
We are all feeding the same desire, aren't we?
Just because your collecting extends to study and reporting doesn't demean a collector happy to fill gaps in a pre-printed album. They are not inferior, the student not elite.
We are all finding our own way to do the same thing, however we do it is entirely up to us.
Come one, come all I say.
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06:47:47am
re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Please boys .. go to separate corners ,count to 10 and then cone back with a smile.....use to work in my classroom....lol
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
"Please boys .. go to separate corners ,count to 10 and then cone back with a smile"
We've done that, Cheryl. All is well.
Ted
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
To me it isn't an us vs them, but all of us are simply at various points on a continuum with extremely scholarly philatelists at one end of the spectrum and little kids with a small album, sticky fingers and a few envelopes full of stamps at the other extreme.
The best part - EVERYONE on that continuum is having FUN!
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
I have no idea where on that spectrum I fall, but I do continually strive to attain the next level.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Personally, I think of myself on both ends of the spectrum at the same time. I consider myself reasonably well versed in a few areas of US philately, but I recently started a world-wide topical collection and I am totally ignorant. But that's OK. I don't plan to ever rise above a "mere collector" in my topical. Nothing wrong with that!
Lars
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
21 Apr 2016
09:33:25pm
re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Okay, I will not be able to sleep peacefully if I do not toss my tuppence into the pot.
First, I reject any attempt to place my collecting habits at some spot on someone's arbitrary philatelic spectrum.
My collecting habits are quite eclectic.
Yes, I have a set of Minkus Supreme/Master Globals Albums (1840-1975) in which I try to fill in the printed spaces. And Yes, I have added many extra pages with some detailed series of varieties, especially shades and CDS/SOTNs.
And I also have many specific countries post-1975, more or less, in separate albums with stamps mounted on blank pages in general date order, at least by year.
My favorite is a large detailed collection in several binders of, usually, postally used Machins that consists of about 2,ooo or more different Machin stamps and covers illustrating specific usages..
To that there are a few binders containing issues of certain favored topics, a dozen separate binders holding interesting covers, some of which I have investigated quite deeply.
To that add an accumulation of postally used covers and cards either from or to, US and UK naval vessels, especially ships lost during WW II, and covers to or from Coast Guard Cutters or the many Coast Guard bases around the world. That excludes made for collectors, cacheted envelopes that did not carry a letter and may even have been prepared only for obsessive collectors long before or after a noted voyage.
There is an interesting assembilege of reference books and catalogs and a half dozen looseleaf binders holding copies of pages from philateliuc sourses fron the days when having a printer and internet access in every home was akin to dreaming of owning a Dick Tracy wrist radio.
There is also a large number of favorite duplicates safely tucked into the pouch of 102 storage boxe that at times I just enjoy riffing thruogh so I can physically hold these stamps in my lunch hooks.
So where do I fit on the spectrum, close to the serious philatelists studying trivial stamp varients, tracing covers back to their users and purpose or gadfly collector who fills spaces in a commercially prepared album ?
And I bet there are dozens of active members hiding in the eaves who are just like me.
In my computer files there are copies of all the more detailed, and I hope, informative comments I have made here and in several other on-line forums over the last ten or fifteen years.
The raw material of a book, perhaps?
If I am right about that last poiunt trying to place some identifying or ranking badge on my baseball cap is futile
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
You're right Charlie! I consider myself at different spots on the spectrum, too, depending on what aspect of my collection I'm doing. I'm a kid with sticky fingers sometimes and when I'm flyspecking I'm more at the other end.
Nothing is an absolute - just using a spectrum as a way to visualize the multiple stages of collecting. The whole process is infinitely more complex than a simplistic us vs them type of description. There are always a million shades of gray and you're pointing that out quite eloquently.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
You know what is really funny about this thread? Most of you know that I am also involved with model railroading. You can take all the references to stamp collecting out of every one of these replies and replace it with model railroading terminology, and you'll have the exact same debate/discussion as occurs in that hobby. I'll even wager that every hobby has the exact same thing from the neophytes to the ultra specialists, and everyone thinking that their way is the best/only way.
Hobbies are for individuals to participate in and enjoy for themselves. We seek out others in our hobbies for a bit of camaraderie and to learn more to add to our enjoyment. However, 99% of the time our involvement in most any hobby is solitary. There is no "perfect" way to do anything other than the way that the individual hobbyist wants to do it. If one spends more time worrying about whether others will think that one is doing the right thing, then it is no longer a hobby but a chore. Sit back, relax and enjoy.
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
"You know what is really funny about this thread? Most of you know that I am also involved with model railroading. You can take all the references to stamp collecting out of every one of these replies and replace it with model railroading terminology, and you'll have the exact same debate/discussion as occurs in that hobby. I'll even wager that every hobby has the exact same thing from the neophytes to the ultra specialists, and everyone thinking that their way is the best/only way."
Bingo! Same with the model car builders! And every hobby is screaming like Chicken Little that the sky is falling!
And there are factions based on what you build or collect. They'll sit at different tables at the club meetings. The big truck guys just sit and glare at the hot rod builders. It's actually funny!
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
Another aspect to this conversation, is the venerable "hobby forum". For virtually every hobby, there's a host of related forums one can join. In some cases they have the power to make or break a hobby, or at very least, shape the future of it.
Among these hobby related forums, there are always the high minded ones that focus on what they believe is the best of the best. Newcomers and/or their questions are met with rude replies and an overall atmosphere that "the newbie is inferior". While these forums may be good for the elite, they do more damage then good, as far as promoting the hobby and if they were the only forums to exist, there would likely be far fewer newbies. Basically, they exist only for the benefit of themselves.
The forums that have the most positive effect on the hobby, are those that put every member on a level playing field. Those that show a genuine interest in every aspect of the hobby, have a friendly environment and are able to find the perfect balance of fun and games, along with the privilege of truly gifted and knowledgeable hobbyists, willing to help the newcomer to do and be better, without making them feel inferior with where they are in the hobby at the time. I don't know of any hobbyist, at any level, that doesn't want to get better at it.
These forums will also have the greatest amount of member involvement. Frank, yet fun discussion will draw members in like a bee to honey and snide off-handed remarks will push them away at virtually the same rate.
When it comes to hobbies, consider yourself what you will, but have the respect for those that choose to do the same. While the names may be different, the passion is typically the same.
WB
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re: Philatelist Vs. Collector
If only it could be..i have relatives (mainly from my wifes side) Who are just at the top of their game..no one has to tell them they are smart or successful..and they would never tell you...but when we get together we speak in terms that everyone understands. So we all get along .
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