THE AH! FACTOR - A New Way of Exhibiting a Very Old Way of Collecting

Franco Frescura

Now that the “Open” class of exhibiting has become an established fixture of national philately, the time may be ripe for us to start re-examining some of the other long-cherished values and principles of stamp collecting. Philately, we are constantly warned, is “in dire straits”, and by all accounts has been there for some time. The rising use of faxes and e-mails for our correspondence, and the increasing popularity of video games amongst the youth are the two most frequently quoted excuses as to why so few new people are joining our fraternity.

However most people are forgetting that the SA Post Office still handles some 9 million letters per day, 27% of which still use stamps, that the vast majority of our population have no access to the electronic media, and that most philatelists only enter the hobby after the age of 35, well after computer games have ceased to be a factor in their lives. The truth is that “snail-mail” is likely to remain a fixture in our society for at least the next generation or two, and that people only turn to a serious hobby once they have married, settled down to a job and a family, and begin to have a small disposable income which won’t be missed from the family budget.

Please also note how I deliberately use the word “fraternity”, meaning a fellowship of men, to describe philately. The female equivalent is “sorority”, and is seldom, if indeed ever, applied to describe gatherings of stamp collectors. So, if the average gathering of philatelists is normally a gathering of men, then we can assume that the rules and values that govern philately as a hobby are those of men.

The reality therefore is that if our hobby is failing, it is for different reasons than the inevitable march of technological progress. As always, we are in competition with other hobbies, which offer more or less the same advantages as philately, and the same opportunities for networking and for intellectual pursuit. Generally I would group these benefits under the following headings:

  1. Fellowship, including the opportunity to get out of the house every now and again, to meet new people, to have a good laugh and generally enjoy oneself.
  2. Investment. Yes, I know, it is a dirty word, but it is a reality, so live with it. Show me a person who does not enjoy snapping up a rarity for next to nothing and I’ll show you a liar.
  3. The pursuit of knowledge. We all enjoy a good puzzle, and besides, research is the basis of all collecting, and of all good buying. The investment factor again, you see?

If these are the three foundation stones of a hobby, what then makes philatelists so different from, say, collectors of model trains, Royal Doulton china, Victorian glass or Art Deco design. Nothing, really, which is why there are so many overlaps between these various interest groups, and which is why, like philately, other areas of collecting are also reportedly in poor health.

Although there are some notable differences between philatelists and other hobby groups, there are also some strong commonalities. Take, for example, the fact that most collections of stamps today also include a strong research component. This includes the history of a stamp issue, its design and printing, and ultimately its functional usage. Many collectors also use aesthetic criteria as a basis for their acquisitions, while others care little about history or aesthetics, but have a feel for the market-place. The description of a collector can include any one, or more, of these factors. This means that philately has potential links to any number of specialised interest groups concerned with the research of genealogy, local customs, railway infrastructure, social history, art and artefacts, curiosities, and investment, and might look to all of these to increase its membership base.

So, if we can agree that philatelists belong to a larger community of collectors; that many collectors will seek out the company of like-minded beings; that collectors will collect, at least in part, according to aesthetic preference or investment; and that the decline in the collector’s market in general cannot be blamed upon the electronic communication media, but upon changing social and economic circumstances; then we have some sound principles upon which we can plan our future actions.

There is strong evidence to show that many changes in the collector’s market can be ascribed to the evolving role of women in society, and the changing nature of marriage and the nuclear family. Greater gender equality in the home and in the work place has meant that household budgets are no longer under the sole control of patriarchal males, with unhindered access to its surpluses. This has limited their buying power, and thus also, their influence in the hobby. It has also placed moral limitations upon the purchase of expensive collecting items, the pieces which normally impress juries and gain awards. Most importantly, however, gender equality has given women access to surpluses of their own, allowing many of them to play a more prominent role in collecting. But where are these new women collectors in philately? Quite clearly the hobby remains patriarchal while women collectors channel their resources into other areas, such as porcelain dolls, fine silver, jewellery, china and furniture.

I strongly believe that one of the keys to the survival of philately will be our willingness to break this gender deadlock. This, and our ability to maximise on our strong points, of good company, investment and intellectual pursuit, might open our doors to new, and previously unplanned-for recruits. Before this can happen however, we need to also re-examine our traditional collecting habits, and how these are reinforced by that annual “rite of passage”, the National Exhibition, how this is presided over by a jury usually dominated by men, and the role in this ritual played by Federation and its system of rewards.

There is no doubt that male collecting is a high testosterone affair, where the rare, the highly priced and the esoteric play a large role. Collections are evaluated by rarity (and hence price) factors, and although research does play a role, in reality most write-ups do not exceed the data obtained from most catalogues or handbooks. While one cannot underestimate the role that many dealers play in the running and, indeed, perhaps even survival of the hobby, the conclusion that their financial well-being is reliant upon their ability to sell highly priced items on the market is regrettably inescapable. “New” research, while highly regarded, is useless unless it is accompanied by material of a “respectable” vintage, and while a number of dedicated people dutifully continue to record the modern and the common for the sake of future and often as-yet-unborn generations, they have to suffer manfully (another gender specific term) while dilettanti with obscene budgets are rewarded with national honours. Women who exhibit nationally are judged by the same standards, that is to say, by how well they can perform like men.

I believe that most of us, male and female collectors alike, are drawn by what I have called the “Ah! Factor”, the visually exciting, the hauntingly beautiful, the finely drawn, the inspirational and the seldom seen, the item which stands out in a dealer’s box or the auction sale and makes us exclaim “Ah!” The truth of an “Ah!” item is that we seldom find more than one or two of them, certainly never enough to fill one frame, let alone a full three or five frame exhibit. They almost never fit in with our main collecting theme, but nonetheless we buy them, to hoard and cherish, and occasionally to look them over. I also believe that men are more regimented in their approach, and will collect and research a theme, a country, or an issue with single-minded thoroughness, bringing together the common and rare alike into an exhibit which often dissects the subject to dreary exhaustion. That is why Federation, its National Exhibition, and its juries are all dominated by men. Women, on the other hand, are more guided by the visually stimulating and the socially responsive, where an item has an underlying subtext which links it to the people who made it. After 44 years of stamp collecting I now believe that women are more drawn to the “Ah! Factor”, and this is why so few of them show their treasures beyond a society level, or indeed exhibit them at all. Unlike men, who display their cars, homes, families, mistresses and collections as an extension of their virility and as a means of defining their social and economic self, women use their collections discreetly and as an expression of their private selves.

In this argument, therefore, I advocate a return to “original” collecting values, using “original” as in fifteenth century original rather than in the sense of a vague “dem gooood ol’ days”. Historically, collecting was not about amassing every known type of butterfly, or animal, or book, but rather about bringing together objects and artefacts which delighted the senses, aroused wonder, excited intellectual curiosity, and somehow allow us to arrive at some conclusion about the human condition. By all means, continue with the national exhibitions in their present format, after all recognition of philatelic excellence is an important part of our life, but let us put aside at least 25% of each exhibition to a non-competitive class called “The Printed Ephemera” where non-philatelic visitors can jump from Napoleon’s autograph on one page to a sheet of Indian matchbox covers on the next, where my father’s wartime “Permit to Circulate on a Bicycle” can sit cheek by jowl with envelopes scripted in fine Chinese calligraphy and WWI Cinderella labels. Stamps, at their most basic, are after all just another manifestation of printed ephemera.

Let us then open our doors to personal journeys of discovery, family histories and open admissions as to what makes us all tick and sparkle as individuals. Let us use philately as a base for social understanding and increased fellowship, where we can safely display our treasures without fear of scorn, or judgemental mutters about jam labels, or the “horrors of Uhuru”, or the excesses of Philatelic Services, or even a predilection by some for first-day covers. I am quite certain that, like me, many advanced philatelists are also closet FDC collectors, and although we may never show these at a Philatelic Exhibition, they still give us a great deal of pleasure.

So! Let us lay siege to the boring, the constricted, and the hide-bound. Let us return, at least in part, to the innocent days of philately, when national exhibitions still allowed for the personal, the original and the idiosyncratic. Let us give stamp exhibitions back to the collectors, and give youth and women their full and rightful voice. Allow youth to exhibit alongside mature collectors and not as a separate group. We can still award the mighty intellects and the gloriously obsessive amongst us: they are, after all, at the pinnacle of the hobby, but let us also recognise that their lofty perches are unattainable to most collectors, and are thus intimidating and supremely uninteresting to all but a small minority. The small and personal collection, on the other hand, is the common matrix from where all philatelic exhibits arise, and it is up to us to give them their rightful place in the order of philatelic things. It is thus and only thus that we can hope to extend the demographic base of our hobby, and, need it be said, even find future purchasers for our current collections.

POSTSCRIPT

This paper was originally published in the South African Philatelist, August 2005. 124-5, under the title of “The AH! Factor: A new way of exhibiting a very old way of collecting”.

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