Month: April 2009

My life is increasingly accelerated and myopic. Your life might be, too, but you’ve been to busy to realize it.

I’m a technical artist and instructor of digital graphic arts. Both careers mean that little of my knowledge is permanent. Unlike, say, being a cooper, where one learns to make barrels, then spends a lifetime perfecting one’s craft. Instead, most of what I learn becomes outdated in a short time. I need to update my skills continually.

Likewise, the tools of my trade become obsolete almost before I get them home. I’ll spend thousands on a computer, knowing I’ll be needing to buy a new one before I finish paying off the last one, and I’ll be fortunate if I can sell it for a tenth of what I paid for it.

It doesn’t end with work, though. At home we’re still watching a standard-def CRT television, and we need to upgrade to HDTV, but as soon as we do that, a newer, better HDTV will come out for less than we paid for the TV we just got home. Even if we can put up for the quality of the HDTV that looked so good until we heard about the latest and greatest new HDTV, we’re still screwed. These things aren’t built to last. It’ll die on its own in a few years, forcing us to buy a new one. The same is true of most every bit of technology I own. The iPod, cell phone and XBox, all of which fill important niches in my life, will all be worthless on a very short time line.

In stamp collecting, I find the antidote to all of these problems.

Stamp collecting is a completely pressure-free activity. There’s no concept of things becoming obsolete or irrelevant. When I mount a 120 year-old stamp into an album, I realize it took over a century for that stamp to wind up on that page. There’s nothing time-sensitive about it. My albums are printed on archival, acid-free paper that will last longer than I’ll be alive. In fact, there are albums in my collection that are over a century old, and they’re just as usable today as when they were first printed. There aren’t many things are there that you can buy and think “I can have this for the rest of my life if I want.”

You could spend $60 for Gears of War 2 for the XBox 360. If you sell it as soon as you beat it you might be able to get $30. That’s only if you do it within the next few weeks, because as the hype dies down, the price drops. Wait until GoW 3 comes out and you might as well just give the game away. A game like that only has about 40 hours of entertainment value, then it’s over and done with. In contrast, I just picked up a used copy of Scott’s International Postage Stamp Album , Vol. I, for around $60. It covers the first 100 years of postage stamps, from 1840 to 1940. I honestly don’t expect to have it filled in my lifetime, so with any luck I’ll get decades of entertainment out of it. But if I do get bored with it, I’ll likely be able to re-sell it for more than what I paid for it.

So, it’s a completely deadline-free activity that only gains in value over time. It’s the complete opposite of most of my life!

There, I said it. It’s out, and you know, it does feel better talking about things…

This has honestly been a difficult thing to go public with. There’s a real stigma against stamp collectors, philatelists, and even though I’ve had a stamp collection since I was five, only my wife and immediate family know about it.

Last year, star tennis player and fashionista Maria Sharapova let slip that she collected stamps. Later, when reporters asked again about it, she replied, “Oh, God, stop. Everyone’s calling me a dork now!”

In fact, her agent had banned her from talking about it for fear that it might effect her sponsorships.

“We’re getting emails from, like, stamp collecting magazines asking if I can do an interview. I mean, it’s just a hobby,” she said. “I’m actually good at telling stories but that is one I should have never talked about. Oh, my goodness. Let’s get off this subject, because I’m going to be an absolute geek tomorrow.”

How sad! Google Maria Sharapova and you’ll see she’s allowed to be two things: tennis star and sexy blonde. The instant she reveals that she’s something more than that she gets shut down. I don’t think “dork” when I hear Maria is a philatelist. I realize she’s not just a stereotype. There’s more to her than playing tennis and looking pretty. She’s interested in the world, its people and its history. She’s a real person, someone you could have over for dinner and it’d be an enjoyable experience, as long as her agent didn’t come.

So yeah, I’ve been in the closet about my philately. The Sharapova incident reinforces the idea that it’s something you should keep quiet because if people know, they’ll think less of you. You’ll lose your social status and your sponsorships. You’ll never have sex with a live human again. People will make fun of you.

You know what? Screw it! I love collecting stamps! Collecting stamps helps me to be a happier, healthier, better informed person. I don’t want to keep this a secret because I’m sure there are others out there who are a) closet philatelists, or, b) would really enjoy collecting stamps if they gave it a chance.

So, from here on, this blog is going to be all about stamps. I’ll be talking about why I collect, and how you can get started, and maybe someday you can say it with me: