Stamp Collecting as a Pastime | Page 2

But the passing fancy has endured for nearly half a century, the
harmless craze still serves its useful purpose, and the fashion has
acquired such a permanence as to convince most people that it has
come to stay.
Of all pastimes, and of all the forms of recreation, not one can claim
more lifelong devotees than this same stamp collecting. And where is
another pastime with such international ramifications? In every
civilised country, in every city, and in every town of any importance,
the wide world over, thoughtful men and women are to be found
formed into sociable groups, or societies, quietly and pleasantly
enjoying themselves in the harmless and enduring pursuit of stamp
collecting.
There must be some reason for this popularity, this devotion of all
classes to a pursuit, this unbroken record of progress. It cannot be
satisfactorily accounted for as a passing fancy or fashion. It has too
long stood the test of years to be so easily explained away. Fancies and
fashions come and go, but stamp collecting flourishes from decade to
decade. Princes and peers, merchants and members of Parliament,
solicitors and barristers, schoolboys and octogenarians, all follow this
postal Pied Piper of Hamelin,
"Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles,
cousins,"
all bent upon the pursuit of this pleasure-yielding hobby.
Why is it? Whence comes the fascination?
To the unprejudiced inquirer the reply is simple. To the leisured man it
affords a stimulating occupation, with a spice of competition; to the
busy professional man it yields the delight of a recreative change; to the
studious, an inexhaustible scope for profitable research; to the old, the
sociability of a pursuit popular with old and young alike; to the young,
a hobby prolific of novelty, and one, moreover, that harmonises with
school studies in historical and geographical directions; to the money

maker, an opening for occasional speculation; and to all, a satisfying
combination of a safe investment and a pleasure-yielding study.
Old postage stamps--bits of paper, as they are contemptuously called
by some people--may have no intrinsic value, but they are, nevertheless,
rich in memories of history and of art; they link the past with the
present; they mark the march of empires and the federation of states,
the rise and fall of dynasties, and the peaceful extension of postal
communication between the peoples of the world; and, some day in the
distant future, they may celebrate even yet more important victories of
peace.
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II.
The Charm of Stamp Collecting.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in a letter to a correspondent,
referring to stamp collecting, wrote: "It is one of the greatest pleasures
of my life"; and the testimony of the Prince of Wales is the testimony
of thousands who have taken up this engrossing hobby.
The pursuit of a hobby is very often a question of expense. Many
interesting lines of collecting are practically closed to all but the
wealthy. But stamp collecting is open to all, for the expenditure may in
its case be limited at the will of the collector to shillings or pounds.
Indeed, the adaptability of this hobby is one of its chiefest charms. The
rich collector may make his choice amongst the most expensive
countries, whilst the man of moderate means will wisely confine
himself to equally interesting countries whose stamps have not gone
beyond the reach of the man who does not wish to make his hobby an
expensive one. The schoolboy may get together a very respectable little
collection by the judicious expenditure of small savings from his
pocket money, and the millionaire will find ample scope for his surplus

wealth in the fine range of varieties that gem the issues of many of the
oldest stamp-issuing countries, and which only the fortunate few can
hope to possess.
In all there are over three hundred countries from which to make a
selection. In the early days collectors took all countries, but as country
after country followed the lead of England in issuing adhesive stamps
for the prepayment of postage, and as series followed series of new
designs in each country, the task of covering the whole ground became
more and more hopeless, and collector after collector began first to
restrict his lines to continents, and then to groups or countries, till now
only the wealthy and leisured few attempt to make a collection of the
world's postal issues.
This necessary restriction of collecting to groups and individual
countries has led to specialism. The specialist concentrates his attention
upon the issues of a group or country, and he prosecutes the study of
the stamps of his chosen country with all the thoroughness of the
modern specialist. He unearths from forgotten State documents and
dusty files of official gazettes the official announcements authorising
each issue.