Stamp Collecting as a Pastime Part 1

Stamp Collecting as a Pastime.

by Edward J. Nankivell.

PREFACE

Many people are at a loss to understand the fascination that surrounds the pursuit of stamp collecting. They are surprised at the clannishness of stamp collectors, and their lifelong devotion to their hobby. They are thunderstruck at the enormous prices paid for rare stamps, and at the fortunes that are spent and made in stamp collecting.

The following pages will afford a peep behind the scenes, and explain how it is that, after nearly half a century of existence, stamp collecting has never been more popular than it is to-day.

And perchance many a tired worker in search of a hobby may be persuaded that of all the relaxations that are open to him none is more attractive or more satisfying than stamp collecting.

Its literature is more abundant than that devoted to any other hobby.

Its votaries are to be found in every city and town of the civilised world. Governments and statesmen recognise, unsolicited, the claims of stamp collecting--the power, the influence, and the wealth that it commands. From a mere schoolboy pastime it has steadily developed into an engrossing hobby for the leisured and the busy of all cla.s.ses and all ranks of life, from the monarch on his throne to the errand boy in the merchant's office.

In the compet.i.tion of modern life it is recognised that those who must work must also play. The physician a.s.sures us that the man who allows himself no relaxation, no recreation, loses his energy, and ages earlier than the man who judiciously alternates work and play.

As stamp collecting may be indulged in by all ages, and at all seasons, it is becoming more and more the favourite indoor relaxation with brain-workers. It may be taken up or laid down at any time, and at any stage. Its cost may be limited to s.h.i.+llings or pounds, and it may be made a pleasant pursuit or an engrossing study, or it may even be diverted into money-making purposes.

So absorbing is the hobby that in stamp circles there is a saying, "Once a stamp collector, always a stamp collector."

I.

As a Pastime.

According to the authorities, the central idea of a pastime is "that it is so positively agreeable that it lets time slip by unnoticed; as, to turn work into pastime." And recreation is described as "that sort of play or agreeable occupation which refreshes the tired person, making him as good as new."

Stamp collectors may fairly claim that their hobby serves the double purpose of a pastime and a recreation. As a pastime, it certainly makes time pa.s.s most agreeably; for the true student of the postal issues of the world, it turns work into a pastime. As a recreation, it is of such an engrossing character that it may be relied upon to afford the pleasant diversion from business worries that so many tired mental workers need nowadays.

For nearly half a century it has maintained unbroken its hold as one of the most popular of all forms of relaxation, and its popularity extends to all cla.s.ses and to all countries.

But this very devotion of stamp collectors to their hobby has puzzled and excited the uninitiated. The ordinary individual, especially the man who has no soul for a hobby of any kind, regards it as a pa.s.sing fancy, a harmless craze, a fas.h.i.+on that must have its day and disappear, sooner or later. But the pa.s.sing fancy has endured for nearly half a century, the harmless craze still serves its useful purpose, and the fas.h.i.+on 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 cla.s.ses to a pursuit, this unbroken record of progress. It cannot be satisfactorily accounted for as a pa.s.sing fancy or fas.h.i.+on. It has too long stood the test of years to be so easily explained away. Fancies and fas.h.i.+ons 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 compet.i.tion; 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 s.h.i.+llings 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 doc.u.ments and dusty files of official gazettes the official announcements authorising each issue. He inquires into questions surrounding the choice of designs, the why and wherefore of the chosen design, the name of the engraver, the materials and processes used in the production of the plates, the size of the plates, and the varying qualities of the paper and ink used for printing the stamps--in fact, nothing that can complete the history of an issue, from its inception to its use by the public, escapes his attention. He const.i.tutes himself, in truth, the historian of postal issues. The scope for interesting study thus opened up is almost boundless. It includes inquiries into questions of heraldry in designs, of currency in the denominations used, of methods of engraving dies, of the transference of the die to plates, of printing from steel plates and from lithographic stones, of the progress of those arts in various countries, of the manufacture, the variety, and the quality of the paper used--from the excellent hand-made papers of early days to the commonest printing papers of the present day--of postal revenues and postal developments, of the crude postal issues of earliest times, and the exquisite machine engraving of many current issues.

He who fails to see any justification for money spent and time given up to the collecting of postage stamps will scarcely deny that these lines of study, which by no means exhaust the list, can scarcely fail to be both fascinating and profitable, even when regarded from a purely educational standpoint. It is true it may be contended that all collectors do not go thus deeply into stamp collecting as a study; nevertheless the tendency sets so strongly in the direction of combining study with the pleasure of collecting, that the man who nowadays neglects to study his stamps is apt to fall markedly behind in the compet.i.tion that is ever stimulating the stamp collector in his pleasant and friendly rivalry with his fellows.

Then, again, an ever-increasing supply of new issues from one or other of the many groups of stamp-issuing countries periodically revives the interest of the flagging collector, and binds him afresh to the hobby of his choice. Old, seasoned collectors, whose interest once set never flags from youth to age, relegate new issues to a back seat. They find more than enough to engage their lifelong devotion in the grand old issues of the early settlements. But the collector of modern issues who cannot afford to indulge in the great rarities, finds new issues a source of perpetual enjoyment. They follow one another month after month, and infuse into the collector's life the irresistible charm of novelty, and every now and again an emergency issue comes as a surprise. There is a scramble for possession, and a spice of speculation in the possibility, never absent from a makes.h.i.+ft and emergency issue, that the copies may be scarce, and may some day ripen into rarity.

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III.

Its Permanence.

Ever since the collection of postage stamps was first started it has been sneered at as a pa.s.sing craze, and it has been going to die a natural death for the past forty years. But it is not dead yet.

Indeed, it is very much more alive than it has ever been. Still the sneerers sneer on, and the false prophets continue to prophesy its certain end.

To the unsympathetic, the ignoramus, the lethargic, the brainless, everything that savours of enthusiasm is a craze. The politician who throws himself heart and soul into a political contest is "off his head," is seized with a craze. The philanthropist who builds and endows hospitals and churches is "a crank," following a mere craze.

The earnest student of social problems is "off the track," on a craze.

The man who seeks relaxation by any change of employment is certain to be cla.s.sed by some idiot as one who goes off on a craze. You cannot, in fact, step off the beaten track tramped by the common herd without exciting some remark, some sneer, perchance, at your singularity.

The most ignorant are the most positive that stamp collecting is only a pa.s.sing fancy of which its votaries will tire, sooner or later; and yet for the last forty years, with a brief exception, due to an abnormal depression in trade, it has always been on the increase.

Indeed, it has never in all those years been more popular with the cultured cla.s.ses than it is to-day. The Philatelic Society of London has an unbroken record of regular meetings of its members extending over a quarter of a century. The literature devoted to stamp collecting is more abundant than that of any other hobby. Its votaries are to be found in every city and town of the habitable globe.

"All very fine," say our bogey men, our prophets of impending evil; "but blue china has gone to the wall, autographs are losing caste, old books and first editions are on the downgrade, pipes are relegated to the lumber-room, metallurgical cabinets are coated with dust, and even walking-sticks survive only at Sandringham!" Just so. We are all--Governments, people, and weather--going to the bad as fast as we can go, according to the croakers, the wiseacres, and the self-appointed prophets. Nevertheless, stamp collecting has survived the sneers and the evil prophecies of forty years, and so far as human foresight can penetrate the future, it seems likely to survive for many a generation yet.