[Swprograms] NYTimes.com Article: Stamp Collecting in an E-Mail Age

[rdcuff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by rdcuff@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


OT, but stamp collecting and SWLing have often been considered similar hobbies.  I saw paralells with how people use the 'Net to augment their SWLing.  --Richard Cuff

rdcuff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


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Stamp Collecting in an E-Mail Age

January 20, 2005
 By SANDEEP JUNNARKAR 



 

LIVING along a remote stretch of Northern California's
redwood coast, Oliver Seeler painstakingly tracks down
stamps from around the world. But not just any stamps. He
collects only those with images of bagpipes. 

Mr. Seeler, the 60-year-old chief of the Albion-Little
River Volunteer Fire Department, came to his hobby through
his work selling bagpipes and bagpipe music. Pursuing such
a niche might once have required a trip to a collectors'
convention, or a chance find at a shop or show. Now, he
uses auction sites, catalogs and other Web resources to
identify stamps that can augment his collection, which he
showcases online. 

"The stamps are often difficult to find even after you have
identified them," he said. "If you had to track them down
by phone or by mail, it would just be prohibitive in terms
of time and money." 

After five years, his collection numbers 148 stamps, and
has inspired a friendly rivalry. A little over a year ago,
he received an e-mail message from a 41-year-old piper in
Yorkshire, Sean Stewart, who had found Mr. Seeler's site
and informed him about a bagpipe stamp from New Zealand
that he had once seen. Their e-mail exchanges about finding
that stamp transformed Mr. Stewart into an avid collector. 

"Now we communicate almost daily. We are always on the
hunt for stamps," said Mr. Seeler, adding that their e-mail
correspondence now numbers nearly 800 messages. "We compete
with each other to see who can come up with the next
bagpipe stamp." (At the moment, Mr. Stewart has 218 of the
240 bagpipe stamps that they have identified.) 

Mr. Seeler and Mr. Stewart's intercontinental rivalry
represents just one facet of how stamp collecting has
adapted to the rise of the Internet. Many enthusiasts worry
that the pastime may slowly fade in the blare of video
games, satellite television and iPods. But for all its
emphasis on paper, ink and glue, stamp collecting has found
new life in the digital age. 

The hobby's online dimension is striking because most
collectors are from an older generation less familiar with
computers and the Internet. Still, the lure of meeting
other stamp collectors, locating that one elusive stamp for
a collection, or showcasing entire collections has drawn
many onto the Web. 

Linn's Stamp News, a weekly publication for collectors,
found that 44 percent of its subscribers used computers for
their collecting last year, compared with 34 percent in
1996. (And the average age of its readers last year was
65.8.) 

An unintended result of displaying stamps on the Internet
is the creation of galleries by individual collectors to
help document and preserve the images and history of
stamps. There are hundreds of exhibits broken down by
themes, like stamps of birds, or by region or period. 

Many philatelists say they would never see the collections
were they not displayed on the Web. "Some of the stamps on
my Web site are quite valuable," said Ross Taylor, a
collector of Victorian stamps who lives on the outskirts of
London and maintains a site at
imagesoftheworld.org/stamps/stamps.htm. "The stamps are in
the bank - and before, I could not even view them unless I
took them out of the bank." 

While traditional places for collectors, like conventions
and stamp shops, still exist, stamp clubs on the Internet
are proliferating. 

"Basically, you were on your own," said Lloyd A. de Vries,
president of a site for enthusiasts, the Virtual Stamp Club
(virtualstampclub.com), and secretary of the American
Philatelic Society, the nation's largest stamp collecting
organization. "I think stamp collecting is growing because
in effect we've all suddenly discovered that there are more
people like us out there to talk to." 

Also gone are the days of cataloging a collection in a
tattered spiral notebook. Specialized database software
like Stamp Keeper Deluxe, Stamp Collector's Data Base and
StampCAT allows philatelists to track their inventory. Some
collectors simply turn to commercial databases or
spreadsheet applications. 

One great challenge for collectors is to identify the
lineage of a stamp. Which historical painting was it based
on? When was it released, and in what quantity? What
variations of the stamp exist, either in denomination or in
size? The Web has transformed this arduous research task
into one that is usually far more manageable. 

"People post images of their stamps and ask others for help
to identify the history of a particular stamp," said
William F. Sharpe, the secretary of the Philatelic
Computing Study Group (pcsg.org), an association dedicated
to improving the hobby through computer use. "Newsgroups
are another way to gather this information." 

Stamp dealers also digitize their collections and post the
images online or provide catalogs on CD's. But collectors
often have to search each dealer's Web site for a
particular stamp, making it a time-consuming process. 

Some entrepreneurs, however, are creating searchable
databases that include the inventory of as many dealers as
are willing to pay to be included. Such portals include
Zillions of Stamps, PostBeeld and StampFinder. Online
auctions are increasingly important for buying and selling
stamps. While there are many sites that specialize in
collectibles, eBay is by far the largest source for stamps,
according to stamp enthusiasts. 

"EBay and its auction cousins are really increasing the
number of people collecting stamps," Mr. de Vries said. At
any given time, there are 40,000 to 50,000 lots of stamps
on eBay alone, by the estimate of several collectors
interviewed. 

In Mr. Seeler's bagpipe quest, eBay, including its German
and French sites, is a primary source for acquisitions -
for which he pays $1 to $80, often buying an entire lot for
a single bagpipe stamp within it. Mr. Seeler then scans
each new stamp and posts the image to his expanding Web
gallery (hotpipes.com/stsmain.html), part of a site he
maintains on bagpipes and their history. 

The stamps available on eBay range from garden varieties to
rarities in the $6,000 range. Watchers of stamp auctions
note that they have seen some available for as much as
$35,000. 

Buyers can also take a chance by bidding on grab bags that
contain hundreds of stamps in see-through garbage bags or
cartons. These lots are often sold by the pound. Potential
buyers have no idea how much the contents are worth, but
hope to find a gem that allows them to double or triple
their investment. On Friday afternoon, one grab bag sold
for $975 after 23 people bid on it. 

But buying stamps online - especially through auction sites
- can be risky. Consumer advocates warn that with stamps,
unlike with other valuables, fraud artists need few special
tools or skills. Counterfeiting a valuable coin takes
special tools and dies; reproducing a painting requires a
skilled artist. 

"In other words, entrance requirements are steep - not in
stamps," said George Kopecky, co-founder of Stamp
Collectors Against Dodgy Sellers (scads.org), a site that
regularly exposes fraudulent auctioneers and dealers on the
Internet. "There are many things you can do to stamps to
make them look like other much more valuable ones with as
little as a pair of scissors." 

A knowledgeable con artist can increase the value of a
stamp with a few cosmetic changes. One common ruse is to
clean up a used stamp to make it appear new, a step that
may drastically increase its value. 

When investigators at Scads are suspicious of a seller on
eBay, they refer to the seller's eBay ID to examine the
person's buying record, comparing the digital images of the
stamps he bought to the ones he is selling. 

"The Internet, particularly eBay, has been a boon for
collectors knowledgeable enough to spot these frauds," Mr.
Kopecky said. "However, the average collector is not
skilled enough to know when they're being taken." 

Stamp fraud predates the Internet, of course. The main
difference now is how quickly con artists can move a large
volume of altered stamps over the Internet compared with
earlier times. 

Connoisseurs can also pull a fast one on neophytes who sell
stamps without realizing their value. People troll for such
bargains on the Internet. "There's a bit of greed involved
in the buyer - like I can pull one over on the seller
because he does not know what he has and I do," Mr. Kopecky
said. 

It is not the fear of being hoodwinked, however, that keeps
a small group of old-timers from tapping the power of the
Internet for stamp collecting. This group fundamentally
believes that stamp collectors should use the postal system
to communicate with one another and to buy and sell stamps.


"My feeling is that today people want instant
gratification," said Estelle A. Buccino, a 71-year-old
collector from Bethesda, Md. "When you have to wait to hear
back from dealers or people you want to trade stamps with,
that is delayed gratification." 

People like Mrs. Buccino acknowledge that the Internet has
enhanced stamp collecting over all and that they are among
the holdouts. "It doesn't bother me," she said. "I see
stamp collecting as being part of a larger social pastime.
There is a pleasure in seeking stamps the old way." 

The new ways are evolving. One idea that recently
percolated across the Internet called for people to
collect, trade and sell not the physical stamps but their
digital images. With many rare stamps costing thousands of
dollars, collecting digital images presented a low-cost
alternative. 

That proposal got little response, but a variation is
slowly catching on. Mr. Taylor says he posts some images of
Victorian stamps taken by permission from dealers to fill
in the blanks in his collection. 

Other collectors keep a digital image to remind them of a
stamp they badly want for their collection, a stamp they
could perhaps never afford. 

"I am never going to afford the $5 Columbian," a rare
United States issue from 1893, said Mr. de Vries, noting
that it can cost thousands of dollars. "But I can have a
tie with the image of it, so why not have a digital image?"


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/technology/circuits/20stam.html?ex=1107245320&ei=1&en=0becb830a91c0c4b


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