PHILATELY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2201, 7 May 1896, Page 36

PHILATELY.

By Olb Stamp.

TRAINING FUTURE COLLECTORS.

Mr E. F. Gambs is a far-seeing American. In referring to this subject he notes a falling off in the demand for stamps on the part of the younger element. Consequently he suggests that the large dealers should combine to give away a few millions of continental stamps to school children by some method that would ensure the wide distribution of tbe stamps; and he offers to lead the way with half a million. Mr Gambs is on the right track, and there is plenty of room for further help in the same direction. As a matter of facfc, we do little or nothing to help our young collectors ; our journals are, one and all, written for the advanced colleotor. Oar albums are tending more and more in the same direction, and our catalogues are being swollen out of all proportion by the enumeration of such varietie* as gladden the heart of the specialist. In every d'rection, m f->cb, the specialist is the dominant factor. This should nob be. So:neone should find it worth while to cater for the junior collector. A halfpenny or penny monthly, which should guide, counsel, and instruct, would surely be a success, and pay an enterprising publisher in more ways than ena. The ideal "Junior Colleotor Monthly " should deal with normal issues only, and not vex the soul of the beginner with the finer distinctions of paper, perforation, or waterOiAik, Staacp collating as presented by tlw

advanced collector from the scientific point of view is far to complex ever to be popular, with the average schoolboy — most ef the best collectors of the day started their philatelic career at schoolboys. But in their day stamp-issuing countries were not numerous, aud minor varieties were practically unknown. It nai all plain sailing then. All that is changed. If no one looks to the, training of the young collector, stamp collecting will assuredly lose its popularity' with our boys and girls, and aB the veterans drop out of the ranks there will be no one to fill their places. • . • I am sorry not to be able to give my read ers any information regarding our coming ne W iasue of stamps. It is something like six months sines the Government selected the designs ; so it is only fair to presume that they have been put in hand. _ ' . • The Philatelic Chroniole has been seeking to find the reason why speculation now 80 largely enters into stamp collecting. It says :—: — "Two causes appear to have been largely instrumental in bringing about- this state of affairs. The greater, in our judgment, is. the fact that through all the vicissitudes of business, and the depression in prices consequent upon hard times, stamps have steadily maintained their values. There have been absolutely no declines in the prices of valuable varieties. A second and related cause is the plain safety of investment in certain stamps. There can be no dtcline in the value of the United States stamps bought in sheets from the post office. Hence large quantities have been laid aside with the spesulative notion that a great rate of interest on money invested may be realised as the natural result of collectors' t and speculators' desires to secure specimens i when they have gone out of^issue."

• . • In its " Inquiry Departmenb" the Weekly Stamp Necvs gives the following answer to the question : " Why is it said, ' Once a collector, always a collector?'"; — "There, may bo exceptions, but as a rule the saying is true. A collector may, for some reason, as being crowded with the pursuance of serious duties, be induced to drop his colleotion, to sell it, give it away, or what else. He may have quit because he lacked the nccjssary help. But give him ths opportunity, and in nine oases out of ten the, old interest will revive, and though he cannot regain his old treasures, he will at once commence to gather whatever may be in his reach. If be happens to have an old collection stowed away and nearly forgotten, tell him of the wonderful advance iv prices, of the many interesting books and pipers published about stamps, of the mammoth business set up by stamps in recent years, of the multitudes adhering to the pursuit all over the world, of the entire change concerning the poiition philatelists hold now as compared with their position 10 years ago, and if the collecting bacillus within him does not begin to stir, you may be sure he never had it."

' . ' St. Helena appears to be financially in a bad state if the following remarks by the St. Helena Guardian be true. It very candidly says that " there is bat one thing that will be the main factor in saving it from ultimate bankruptcy — and that is philately. At the present time the colony possesses but one stamp die — the sixpenny. All of the other values are reprints from this die. Now, it. doesn't require a vecy extraordinarily keen conception to understand that by having a new stamp die — say, if we are fortunate enough to obtain a reduction to the 2£d rate, a 2£d die, and have the other values printed from it, there will be a tremendous demmd by philatelists for both old and new stamps, that it will certainly pay the Government to get one, and also be the salvation of the colony." Probably the recent sile of la stamps was a move in the direction of saving the island from bankruptcy. • . • The Stamp Collectors' Fortnightly received the following good story from a correspondent who waa recently in Western Australia :—": — " It appears th&t the reprinting of the errors recently (which was so promptly stopped by the action of the Western Australian Philatelic Society) was really an act of spite on the part of the Postmaster-general. It seems that a clerk in the post office purchased nearly all the errors over the counter, and when he was auked by the Postmaster- general to hand them back to the Government he very naturally refused, he having bought them in the legitimate way. Then, out of spite, and in order to lower the value of these very scarce errors, the Post-master-general hastened to reprint them, but, not being a philatelist, he lost sight of the fact that he hud no more 3d brown with the watermark C.C. in stock. He therefore surcharged the 3d brown with C.A. watermarked paper, bo that his revenge missed fire completely." ' . * The editor of the last-named paper has taken to prophecy in his old age. Says he :— " If speculation pure and simple be the 'new philately,' it likes us Dot. It is a shoddy, sordid innovation that will disgust the true collector as the shooting of oaged pigeons disgusts the hunter of big game. Once pub philately in the grip of the speculator, and our hobby is doomed. A hobby it will cease to be ; and when it is no longer a hobby down will .go the prices that are now paid for intrinsically valueless scraps of paper, and instead of the • boom ' that the apostles of the new philately predict, there will come a swift and disastrous ' slump.' But why get so downhearted, and make so much fuss over the cute business move of a couple of dealers P "