[HN Gopher] Stamping the joy out of collectors ___________________________________________________________________ Stamping the joy out of collectors Author : jasonhansel Score : 94 points Date : 2021-04-17 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (notalwaysright.com) (TXT) w3m dump (notalwaysright.com) | readingnews wrote: | I think OP failed to realize there are 0011 kinds of people in | the world. 0001) your average joe. He just wants | a stamp. 0010) You. You want some stamps, but you are | not "into it". 0011) Those guys at the store. 0001 and | 0010 are rubbish and should not be speaking to them, for they | are elite stamp collectors, just like everyone else should be. | | It is getting harder to just find people "into it". I am a hi-fi | enthusiast. I also have advanced degrees in EE and Physics, but I | try to not let that get in the way. Talking to people on hi-fi | forums seems MUCH harder than say, 10 years ago (and I never left | the forum). Now I am one of the silent lurkers. | | My point is not to go "forums now suck", but I think that "real | collectors" are too extreme now... hrm, perhaps just like | everything else? Polarized? | TheAceOfHearts wrote: | A friend recently pointed out that fandoms are like a fractal, | and as you zoom in it becomes increasingly hardcore and | dedicated. | | The next layer on your list is probably the stamp collector | that only loves a certain kind of stamp with some obscure | feature and will talk your ear off about it. Probably something | like how only the stamps made in a specific year by one company | are any good because they use a highly specialized glue which | really makes it the pinnacle of stamp technology. A real "they | just don't make em like they used to". | | People become obsessed with things to such an extreme degree | that they end up drowning out anyone without an equivalent | level of dedication. It becomes a problem when people chose to | play status games instead of just enjoying their hobby. | nicbou wrote: | I noticed this with history. You can go from general history | to people who can tell you where a WW2 jeep engine was built | based on its serial number. | | I also found that unlike with most hobbies, I find history | talk much more civilised all around. People are eager to | share, and generally willing to accept well-sourced | disagreement. | dehrmann wrote: | > A friend recently pointed out that fandoms are like a | fractal, and as you zoom in it becomes increasingly hardcore | and dedicated. | | Almost everything is like that. Turtles... | HWR_14 wrote: | >People become obsessed with things to such an extreme degree | that they end up drowning out anyone without an equivalent | level of dedication. It becomes a problem when people chose | to play status games instead of just enjoying their hobby. | | It's true in academia and in technical fields as well. As you | become an expert, details most people skip over become very | important parts of your day. | | The real difference is between people who disdain you for not | knowing as much as they do about some issue, those who | enthusiastically try to educate you, and those who recognize | not everyone cares about it as much as they do and tries to | speak to whatever level you are at (or slightly above it if | you've expressed a desire to go deeper.) | tjr225 wrote: | It is the same thing in synth and guitar circles. Maybe now we | have just discussed all of these things as nauseum for so long | the only way to move the discussion forward is this | extremeness. | dehrmann wrote: | Which strap lock sounds best? I hear schallers don't resonate | well. | navbaker wrote: | I just found this out the hard way. After playing acoustic | for ~15 years, I decided my birthday this year was the time | to join the world of electric guitars. I joined several | guitar related FB groups, expecting them to be as civil as | the tabletop gaming groups I belong to (my other hobby). I | quickly found out how wrong I was, it seemed there was no | topic too mundane to turn into a mud slinging gate keeper | competition. Not sure what it is about musical instruments | that makes it that way. | pmiller2 wrote: | I own an electric cello that I occasionally play and used | to take lessons with. Back when I was looking for a | teacher, I had a hard time finding anyone who'd let me use | it during lessons. Most of them wanted me to rent a wooden | cello. | | I get that there are a lot of bad electric cellos out | there, and there are some good electrics that are bad for | beginners. But, mine is a Yamaha SVC-100 [0]. It's a | professional-worthy instrument, even if most professionals | don't use it. It has all the correct touch points as a | regular cello, and it responds like a normal cello, so, as | far as learning goes, it's just fine. | | With cello people, I think it's a sense of conservatism or | something. I didn't really want to rent an instrument, so, | I kept looking until I found someone who would just let me | play my own. The guy I found was amazing, and owned his own | electric. He also played cello in a rock band. I'm sure all | those other cello teachers were fine, but I had a blast | with this guy, and I'm glad I found him. | | [0]: https://www.yamaha.com/en/about/innovation/collection/ | detail... | kbenson wrote: | Some forums exemplify the long tail of hobby fanaticism. What | used to be a couple people in the back of the convention that | were hardcore is now a large group of those disparate people in | a forum. | | Sometimes you have to find a different forum. That's also why | you'll see multiple subreddits for the same thing. They embody | different aspects of the topic and draw people that associate | with that aspect. Sometimes some of the same people in both, | but the purport themselves differently depending on where they | are. | bpcpdx wrote: | > Now I am one of the silent lurkers. | | So that's where you guys went. | | I remember how forums used to always have a few extremely | knowledgeable individuals that would post and give insights but | for the most part would be pretty nice and humble. Sometimes | they even worked in the industy. And a lot of times they | wouldn't even comment until another user called them out. | | Then the psuedo experts started showing up. They either | overestimate their experience or just spent some time on | wikipedia and think that they're an expert, and they make a | point to pick apart every post they can. And even less | knowledgeable posters will back the pseudo expert because they | are relentless and are able to sound smart. | sneak wrote: | I think a lot of collectors collect specifically for the same | reason people grind in RPGs: to get the mental and emotional | satisfaction from the "complete set" (of stamps, or rare armor, | or whatever). | | Collecting without such a goal would, to people like that (who I | assume comprise the large majority of collectors) would seem like | a colossal waste of time. Why grind out the dungeon to get the | greaves and the chest plate and then not spend a few more hours | to get the helm?!! | | Most human behavior is not very rational, and I say that | referring to both parties in this story. | lb1lf wrote: | -The problem, of course, being: What do you do when the | collection is complete? (I ran into that problem once - I | collected stamps fairly seriously during my childhood and | youth, spurred on by my father who was and is really into it. | | However, I narrowed my collection to two themes - Norway and | scout-themed stamps and letters from all over the world. | | Once the Norway collection was complete to the current date, it | was a massive 'meh' moment - just obtaining new stamps as they | were issued wasn't much of a challenge, so the Norway albums | were put on the shelf, and interest in stamp collecting | withered quickly. | | Oh well. It was great fun while it lasted. :) | dehrmann wrote: | The process of collecting was probably most of the fun, | anyway. That said, I could see how the internet ruined it | because 99% of what you're looking for can be in your hands | in a week for the right price. | lb1lf wrote: | -I've met collectors (of records, in that case) who had | what I consider an admirable attitude towards the perils of | instant eBay gratification - seeing as the chase in most | cases was better than the catch, they'd imposed a 'no | Internet' rule - albums were only bought in physical record | stores, at record fairs, garage sales &c - but, as it was | put - 'Unless I can chat a bit with the seller, then put | the money in his hand, there's no deal.' | | I'd imagine it makes the hobby equal measures more | rewarding and frustrating. | | (I've since tried to adopt this approach myself as far as | practically possible - seeing as for me (YMMV), the social | aspect of discussing music and artists with other | enthusiasts is a major part of the appeal, helping me | discover new music on ways no auction site can. | compiler-guy wrote: | Not every hobby needs to be a lifelong hobby. The things you | learn and the enjoyment you get while it is current can be | worth it alone. | klelatti wrote: | Lots of discussion about collecting (and in seeking to own a | complete set of stamps, coins etc) vs exploring. I wonder though | if for most if the pleasure is in a combination of the two. | | When I was very young I collected the stamps of my country - | which I guess will be fairly common. Seeking out issues that I | was missing was appealing and there was definitely a thrill in | tracking down missing items. | | At the same time I learned about history (albeit in a superficial | way) both from knowing about the era in which the stamps were | issued and, for more recent issues, from the topics depicted on | the stamps. That knowledge seemed to stick too and more so than | just from reading books. I guess I also learned a little about | markets and scarcity. | | I wonder if that knowledge would have stuck without the effort of | seeking and the reward of finding and whether we have lost | something in the ease of access to information today. | lordnacho wrote: | What? You're just coding for fun? Where's your helm charts? If | you're going to be serious about this, you'll need to learn three | languages. HTML isn't a language. Make sure it works across | platforms, too. Also, you have make it multicloud. | gamacodre wrote: | What? You only put in one load balancer? What were you | _thinking_? | gscott wrote: | but I just want to host my sites on GoDaddy | dehrmann wrote: | > I am just sentimental about my childhood pastime and keepsake, | and I want to recapture it as best as I can. | | Sigh. I get the desire, but it feels like it just won't be the | same. | michrassena wrote: | I've had a similar realization rather recently when cleaning | out my parent's house after both their deaths. My father got me | into stamp and coin collecting as a young child and it was an | opportunity to bond and have something in common. For many | years now, I haven't given the hobby much thought. Seeing the | remnants on the old stamp collection brought back some | memories. As I looked up values and got a better idea of what | the collection might be worth, I could see clearly that even | sheets of uncanceled stamps, which I used to prize, were near | worthless. Some of that difference in perceived value is | explained by the perceptions of a child versus that of an | adult. But these stamps just hadn't appreciated much in value | over many years, certainly not the degree anyone could call | them a good investment. | | But what was most striking to me, which I hadn't really thought | about when I was young collecting these for entertainment, was | just how particular and stultifying the grading systems for any | collectible can be. I think the system, and how it interacts | with money, is the culprit. There is this undercurrent of | curation and preservation that goes along with collecting which | leads to perfectly preserved toys in boxes. I appreciate things | in themselves, and not just for their use. But I dislike the | idea that a blemish, like a torn perforation on a sheet of | stamps, can devastate the value of an object. For the objects I | have several of, their use contributes to my enjoyment. If | other people want to maintain museums, that's up to them. | philjohn wrote: | I'd argue that since they brought you and your father closer | together, and was something you spent time with him doing, | they're priceless - what does it matter if they weren't a | good investment monetarily, time, and especially time with | people who you won't have in your life for the entire | duration, is worth more, because no amount of money can buy | more of it. | michrassena wrote: | I agree, there's no question that was the real value. I | should point out that whatever made it fun is gone. | Whatever I found compelling about design or history as | exemplified in stamps, is available through the Internet | and books. If I were to collect stamps again, it would be | images of stamps, not the fragile artifacts themselves. | temp0826 wrote: | Reminded of the scene in the movie Unbreakable when Samuel L | Jackson's character refuses to sell the rare drawing to the man | after he reveals it was going to be a gift for a young child, who | would be unable to fully appreciate it. | jonnycomputer wrote: | This story reminded me of something I lost about the same age. My | grandfather was a surveyor and he gave me his compass. It was not | an expensive one, though it was made of bronze. I took it with me | to Los Angeles. I don't think it ever came back. But I don't know | _where_ I lost track of it. I wish I still had it to remember him | by. | celesti wrote: | Maybe because stamp collecting was the first shopclerks | "business" he did not really see the joy in it any longer? | Logical arrangements are nice but aesthetic arrangements are also | nice! | Vaslo wrote: | Funny to see this - had a similar situation recently (sort of) | with a train shop. I couldn't care less about collecting trains - | I bought a train a few years ago for xmas and my kids loved it so | I bought a year round one as well. Lionel trains are not cheap | and easy to repair. Both have already broke where a significant | repair was needed. | | I watched videos and tried to fix one that wouldn't fire up at | all. Took it to the shop and the proprieties seemed kind of | annoying with me as I asked for their help to repair (of course | intending to pay). They gave me a lecture about letting a four | year old play with a train like this. Usually I'd lose my temper | and start arguing but my son really missed the train. | | They ended up replacing the engine board ($120 bucks) and took | forever to get it back to me. | | I get that people have sacrosanct hobbies like coding, sports, | etc. They have to understand that dilettantes like me may want to | dabble! | | Also I am a self taught DBA and never ever use keys. I'll take in | any incoming fire as probably deserved :). | m463 wrote: | I went to a train store a few years back, and yes there was | definitely a "trains are serious business" vibe about the | place. | | Maybe it's because most of the customers have white hair and | extra money. | | Thing is, it's hilarious how seriously trains are done! | | You buy a DCC locomotive and it has lights that light up in the | direction of travel. The engine spools up with a delay like a | real locomotive with sound increasing, the air brakes releasing | and only then does it move. And they have 20 horns to choose | from - pick the right one for the regional line you're | simulating. Sort of nuts. | | I was talking to another customer though and he balanced it all | out. He said he had too many trains. He told me it was really | relaxing to go downstairs after dinner with a glass of wine and | run his trains or work on his layout. | | I think the best train guy was Gomez Addams. | ineptech wrote: | Growing up, I knew a guy, friend of my Dad's, who had an | incredibly elaborate train set in his basement. It's clear he | had thousands of hours invested in it. I never got in to | trains, but I do have a hobby video game coding project, and | I'm struck by how similar it is to a model train hobby: | | * I work on it exclusively in the evenings after the kids are | asleep | | * It relaxes me and gives me something to daydream about | during work meetings | | * It'll never make me any money and it'll never be done | | The funny thing about my Dad's friend was, he hated showing | off his trains. Very few people knew it existed, and even | fewer had seen it; he only let me see it once, and my dad was | his best friend for 40+ years. | | Back then I thought he was secretive, or afraid I'd break | something. Now that I have my own pointless hobby, I think I | understand him better. It's embarrassing to put so much time | and thought into something and to have someone see it and | say, "Neat! So, anyway..." I guess it's more valuable as a | private solace than as a conversation piece. | m463 wrote: | I think it's nice, maybe even necessary, to have something | that you enjoy, and maybe you're even good at, but you | don't have to care about and doesn't have to become a | responsibility. | | I had little hobby projects, and people were like - you | should make this into a product. And I had to fight this | sort of "am I too lazy to do it? am I afraid?" but really, | I just needed something that didn't have a point. | | I also think there are a lot of things I didn't "get" as a | kid. I remember trying golf as a kid, and I thought "this | is so totally boring, why don't these guys ride bikes | instead?" And it's only when you get (much) older do you | realize people have so much responsibility that getting | outside and walking around is a treasure. (of course it | could be other things) | ansible wrote: | I was nodding along with you (though I'm not into trains | anymore) until this: | | > _Also I am a self taught DBA and never ever use keys. I'll | take in any incoming fire as probably deserved :)._ | | ... that 's like saying "I'm a self-taught programmer, but I | never use functions." | | I mean, yeah, you can still get some things done that way, but | if you spent a little time learning what's possible, you might | be a lot happier with the end product. | grawprog wrote: | >that's like saying "I'm a self-taught programmer, but I | never use functions." | | Once you've mastered if/else and goto, what else do ya need? | ansible wrote: | Well, technically... you are correct. | | It would still be an improvement over the older BASIC | dialects, because with those it was common to have a limit | to the number of variables due to names being one or two | letters. | gamacodre wrote: | Yep. ZX81 BASIC had 26 string variables (A$ through Z$) | and 26 floating point variables (A through Z). No integer | variables per se, but you could POKE and PEEK to get at | 8-bit values anywhere in memory - which typically maxed | out at 16K. | zeta0134 wrote: | Here come the traumatic memories of doing If/Then/Goto on | TI-Basic, not understanding the Else or End tokens at all. | Turns out each If/Then opens a new stack frame, and because | I was never closing them with the corresponding tokens, | memory slowly filled while the program ran. You could | therefore get a high score of exactly 203 on my PONG clone | before it crashed. | | Good times! But seriously, take a few minutes to learn your | tools properly if you use them more than once, it'll make | things so much easier. :) | samatman wrote: | In other words, a whole subculture. | | This used to be very common with VBA, I would expect these | days it's more of a Python thing. | | Someone wants to do something, they find out that the thing | they want to do is "programming", and they start writing a | script that can do that thing. They add to it, it gets | longer, it works. | | They probably know functions _exist_ but don 't really get | why they would use one. There's a decent chance they'll never | get it, and that's fine. | | I have roughly ten python scripts I use for this and that, | and three of them don't have any functions. I wrote a similar | no-function python script for a work thing a couple jobs | back, and my CTO was kind of ticked off, said I should know | better, and don't submit it for code review again without a | main() function and some "proper separation of concerns". | | Which, fine; it's his company, the rewrite is trivial, I | probably cleaned some things up a bit. But the script was | fine the way it was. | m463 wrote: | OTOH, I can see not using subroutines with side effects... | bombcar wrote: | LEGO makes (made) trains that are roughly Lionel size and | they're much more durable (and though some of the parts are | older and expensive, they're available). | zabzonk wrote: | Yeah, you should collect what interests you. My Dad, who was an | RAF V-bomber captain, had a great (and quite valuable) collection | based on early airmail, with pictures of airships and biplanes on | the stamps. | kingsuper20 wrote: | The fight for status among males will never end. | | It took me decades to chat in bars about things I have a _lot_ of | detailed knowledge about. Learning to listen to stories and not | automatically correct took some time. | | Nobody loves a pedant. | vmception wrote: | > Nobody loves a pedant. | | I've taken it a step further and play along with spiritual and | astrology talk from women. | | About 2/3rds of guys and 1/3rd of other women act very confused | that I'm not immediately denigrating the person talking about | signs and dietary restrictions. Turns out all you have to do is | not do that, and a lot of things open up with very visually | attractive people. Yeah, I'll talk about higher vibrations with | the fun lean vegan woman. | | They're used to people pedantically challenging their belief | system, but many can amplify their interest in you if you | simply don't do that. | lupire wrote: | How about just being a decent human being instead a creepy | pickup artist? | mcphage wrote: | Are the only 2 kinds of people "creepy pickup artist" and | "asshole"? | vmception wrote: | I don't mind that belief system, and I'm actually | advocating for people to not denigrate or lecture people | that talk about astrology. The bar shouldn't be so low. I'm | pretty sure this is being a decent human being, you're | assuming a lot for a reason beyond me. I would still use | the term play along because it is accurate. | wisty wrote: | Is it really just a "fight for status among males"? | | If you don't correct someone, I only see two possibilities: | | 1. The topic is so worthless (to you) it doesn't matter if | they're wrong. | | 2. They are so worthless (to you) it's not worth correcting | them on an important topic. | | 2b. They lack the intelligence (IQ or EQ) to grow from being | corrected. | | Of course, a some of the time this is right. | | Yes there's also a chance that you're wrong (in which case | correcting them may result in you being corrected, or at least | a potentially fruitful discussion), but the same would apply - | is the topic and person worthwhile the chance of upsetting a | thin-skinned idiot? | Guthur wrote: | Maybe because generally men have a lot of trouble identifying | their self worth in society, maybe because few people are | actually that sympathetic to men and their struggle to find | meaningful fulfillment within their lives. | | Every struggle is seen as a negative, some "toxic" side of | masculinity that needs to be eradicated rather than embraced | and understood. We are positively hostile to it. | | And somewhat strangely we also attack femininity, though in a | less openly hostile manner, more killed with compassion. We | seem to feel sorry for outward femininity which appears to be | having the effect of pushing women towards a more masculine | outlook. I feel we no longer adore femininity like we once did. | | Some may argue that this is all for the best, and that we need | to push us all to some more less defined state, but I'm not so | sure that the cost in diversity is worth it. | kingsuper20 wrote: | This brings to mind Ted Kaczynski's manifesto in terms of the | need for achievable, non-trivial goals and the inability of | so-called 'surrogate' goals to really satisfy that need. | pmiller2 wrote: | I love when people reference Kaczynski's work in serious | discussions like this. Ted Kaczynski the domestic terrorist | and murderer was not a person to be admired, but Ted | Kaczynski the anarcho-primitivist philosopher is one of the | most underrated and important intellectuals of the late | 20th century. There's an awful lot packed into his | manifesto, and I wish more people could see past his crimes | in order to take that in. | | BTW, I found out he's updated the manifesto, and that it, | along with some other of his works, was published in an | anthology in 2010: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Other_works | msrenee wrote: | I've definitely had my femininity attacked in an openly | hostile manner. Often. When I was in junior high and high | school, I thought women were the lesser sex and eschewed | girly hobbies and clothing in favor of more masculine things. | No dresses, no makeup, I cooked in order to eat, nothing | fancy. I hung out with the guys and played video games. It | wasn't until the last 5 years or so that I realized I could | wear skirts out shopping and work a blue collar job during | the week. I know masculinity is under attack in many circles, | but it's quite the claim to say that femininity is less so. | ISL wrote: | Collections can be both free* and compelling: https://www-cs- | faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/diamondsigns/diam... | | * at least in capital cost. I imagine he expended plenty of time | and travel on the subject. | irrational wrote: | I wonder what those 2 guys in the store were doing all day? Just | buying and selling rare stamps? Maybe hoping to find that one | stamp to complete some collection? | nlh wrote: | I collected coins avidly when I was ~10-13 and the hobby just re- | ignited itself with me again, now 30 years later (I can't exactly | explain how or why, but here we are). | | I went to a coin show today on a whim and what I discovered was | that there are ALL types of collectors, and everyone should | really understand that: | | * There's 10 year old me that was obsessed with finding the rare | die varieties hidden in the $1 bins, | | * There's 42 year old me that is now getting deep joy buying the | rare gems (1790s silver dollars, $20 gold pieces, etc.) that were | beyond out-of-reach of 10-year-old me | | * There's folks who obsess over filling every date of a specific | series | | Etc. etc. etc. | | Find your joy and run with it, and _definitely_ don 't try to | tell someone that their joy is the wrong one. | WalterBright wrote: | > It takes me several years to actually accept that the stamp | album is gone, not hiding in a box somewhere or shelved away in | some dusty corner of my mum's garage. | | I lost my comic book collection. I was sure it was stolen. I | looked everywhere for it. | | About 20 years later it reappeared in the back of the closet. I | have no explanation. | StavrosK wrote: | Isn't it obvious? The thief returned them after they finished | reading them. | 8bitsrule wrote: | Stamps are one of the most portable collectibles. (Along with | bugs.) Moves forced the loss of other collections ... but I've | kept the collection of "only about 6000 or 7000 stamps" I made as | a kid (I counted once). | | It went with me to stay at grandma's, on babysitting jobs, on | summer trips that went to nowhere to do nothing. Open the book, | get out the hinges, dive in. | | I learned a lot about world geography, culture, arts and crafts, | and political BS from those revealing little bits of 'official' | history. The 'most valuable' stamp I found (nothing printed on | it) taught me -nothing-. | justin_oaks wrote: | > So, for you, it was just a form of mindless entertainment? A | hobby? | | Wow, such condescension. Reminds me of the saying "Everyone | thinks other people's hobbies are a waste of time". For some it's | stamp collecting, others it's watching musicals, and others do | programming. Everyone should be allowed to do what they love in | their spare time without others looking down on them. | criddell wrote: | I'm a fan of John Lennon's take. He supposedly said "Time you | enjoy wasting, was not wasted." | dehrmann wrote: | I almost appreciated how condescending he was. As someone who | tries to avoid collecting, it just reinforced that decision. | | I used to collect Star Trek Christmas tree ornaments. At some | point, I realized I'd just get a new one, put it in the box | with the others, and not touch it until I open the box in a | year. The end game of collecting seemed very futile. | | This gave me a better appreciation for things that are | performed (like playing an instrument) because they're never | perfect, never finished, and there might not even be an | artifact of it. | Baeocystin wrote: | My parents were huge collectors of ...stuff. Not quite | hoarding, but in the same neighborhood. | | I was for a while, too, simply because of how I was raised. | But as my own home filled, I clearly noticed how less happy I | was becoming. And when my parents passed, the work of dealing | with a full home was, frankly put, awful. | | I purposefully have changed my hobbies to things like music, | cooking, gardening. Gaming, too. You can practice a musical | piece a thousand times- it doesn't add to your mess. Cooking | fulfills an immediate need, and it's been my experience that | quality food as a gift is more appreciated than almost any | physical artifact. And plants bring their own joy, without | continuously taking more space. | | My mother once told me late in her life to spend my money on | experiences, not things, and I think about it often. She was | right. | Turing_Machine wrote: | That attitude reminded me of a guy who owned a used book store | in a town where I used to live. | | He had all the "literary" stuff on prominent display, and all | the genre fiction crammed into the back. | | Oh, he'd _sell_ you science fiction, or mysteries, or romance, | or whatever, but he 'd always make sure to give you a little | sneer when ringing you up. "Enjoy your trash, lowbrow!" | | His store went out of business and he had to liquidate his | entire stock at 90% off. | Baeocystin wrote: | We have an awesome local used bookstore that has managed to | survive the covid shutdowns. | | Their secret? They have their 'trashy lowbrow' proudly front | and center. They, of course, carry everything, but they also | know what sells, and want people happily reading, no other | requirements. | | Turns out that sort of approach leads to lifelong, regular | customers! | lupire wrote: | Mitchell and Webb, "The Insulting Librarian" | | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rqTE-ig7NhY | true_religion wrote: | Many people who go to stamp dealers are collecting because of a | personal interest in history. It's a hobby, but it's a serious | hobby for them with non-entertainment goals. It's those people | who start stamp stores, visit them, and generally keep the | entire industry alive. | | Finding someone who simply does it for 'joy' is against the | grain. | | It's like having a Porsche and not knowing anything about its | internals or engineering history and simply driving it for fun | on the track. If you join a car club, they'll think you are | weird for not caring or knowing the displacement of your engine | or your tire size. | bartread wrote: | > It's like having a Porsche and not knowing anything about | its internals or engineering history and simply driving it | for fun on the track. If you join a car club, they'll think | you are weird for not caring or knowing the displacement of | your engine or your tire size. | | Who cares if they do? If you want to buy a Porsche to enjoy | hooning it around the track without knowing about any of that | stuff, and if you can afford it? Why not do it? Who cares | what those people think? | | I absolutely don't mind if people want to geek out on the | details or really take their hobbies seriously: that's | totally cool. I do start to mind a bit when they expect me to | do the same when that might not be what I want to do. | true_religion wrote: | > I do start to mind a bit when they expect me to do the | same when that might not be what I want to do. | | I definitely agree that it's annoying. | foodstances wrote: | I've been involved in many car clubs and have never seen | anyone think someone is "weird" for not knowing those things, | they just assume the person isn't that interested in caring | about those technical details (akin to being at a tech | conference and there being programmers vs. users of a | platform). As long as you have an interest in the cars and | are sociable, other people are generally happy that you're | there. | lb1lf wrote: | -Myself, I don't listen to country&western music, but I don't | want to denigrate people who do. | | Oh, if you listen to C&W and read this - 'denigrate' means 'put | down'. | | :) | | (I agree wholeheartedly, though - to each his own, and if I | find joy in collecting whatever stamps come my way, then so be | it - chances are I have as much fun collecting as someone who, | say, only collects NK100 (Norwegian 10 ore posthorn stamp) - it | was printed over several decades, more than half a billion of | them in a country of (then) a couple of million inhabitants - | lots of minor variations in paper, ink, engravings...) | bobsled wrote: | I know what I am meant to think and feel in response to this | article, but I don't. Keeping in mind that this was written by | the one of the three people in the story, who took it upon | themselves to post about the experience online later, I can only | assume there is some level of bias and quite possibly | exaggeration. Put simply, these are the facts of the interaction: | 1. An inexperienced individual enters a highly specialized area. | 2. Someone who we can assume is highly experienced takes time out | of their day to explain to them their (probably popular) | conception of how the specialized area functions. 3. This | experienced individual gives them something of value relating to | the highly specialized area (I do not know what the cash value of | this thing is, but it is nonzero), likely in hopes of future | business. 4. The inexperienced individual is upset and posts | about the interaction online, tagging it with "jerk". | | I understand the point of the article, but the characterization | of the shopkeeper seems unfair. If you're unwilling to learn from | someone because they don't understand what exactly you're trying | to do, or because they speak condescendingly, or because they | smell bad, or because you disagree with their opinion on X, Y, or | Z, you will not learn very much. | bittercynic wrote: | I thought this was written in an open enough way to leave room | for a wide range of takeaways, and it also seems fair to say | the shop keeper was acting like a jerk. Not that he's obliged | to serve a client who's looking for something so different from | what the shop provides, but he could have been more pleasant, | and just let the customer know he doesn't have what he's | looking for. | | I think there is a place in the world for people with | specialized interests to have a shop that caters exclusively to | other people who are deep into the hobby, and to be a little | brusk to normies who wander in looking for something else. It | sure would have been a lot nicer if the shop keeper just | understood the situation and kindly explained "That's not what | we do here", but, hey, not everybody's gonna be super nice. | It's part of life. | II2II wrote: | Perhaps it is honest rather than embellished. I have had | similar experiences with bike shops. Some seem to be more | interested in converting or repulsing customers who don't fit | their definition of serious. | | That being said, the author did walk into the shop with a | rather difficult request. How do you recreate something | personal? | MattGaiser wrote: | Just to add some context for why the dealer probably acted that | way. | | Stamp collectors for exploration are quite a bit different from | the kinds of collectors that tend to go to stamp dealers (I am | one of those collectors). | | You end up focussing on extremely narrow areas of the hobby to | the point where you are hunting down which library has a painting | a stamp is copied from or trying to track down an envelope sent | by a particular person from a particular city. | | You can have 10 different variations of a stamp that look all the | same except under a magnifying glass. | | There are collectors who have hundreds of thousands of dollars in | their collections and all of the same single stamp. Just 1000 | different copies of it. | | The premier component of my collection is an exhibit on the 1982 | Canadian Philatelic Youth Issue, a single stamp series (about | stamps). | | So for a lot of collectors (including the ones willing to spend | thousands a year) it's less an accumulation hobby and more a | specific research project. | | Not excusing the behaviour of the dealers, but meeting someone | who collected so widely could be unusual for them. | mcguire wrote: | The problem is that some of those collectors don't realize that | there are any other ways of approaching a hobby. | | A while back on BGG, someone new dropped a question in a forum | about designing a game based on a web comic. He was told | immediately that he'd never make money, that he'd never be | successful without more experience than he'd be willing to get, | and to top it off, got a long lecture from one grognard about | how the game---based on a comic---would be a total failure | unless he dropped the concept and rebased it on said grognard's | own ideas. | | The newbie concluded, rightly, that it wasn't a welcoming | community. | yannis wrote: | I have collected stamps as a kid and I have been collecting | Postal History for decades on and off, focusing mainly on | research and writing up the covers that I have managed to | collect. Kept me sane during the COVID-19 lockdowns. | | Philately is not about 'chasing madly a missing stamp', but a | journey for those interested in history, especially local | history. It is still a great hobby and to anyone interested to | start, start from buying a small collection. Most collectors | will either buy from a dealer, but most often from an auction. | See https://stampauctionnetwork.com/ as an example. You can | build a collection with very little money or spent hundreds of | thousands. | | It inspires me to hold an old letter (cover or wrapper in | philatelic jargon), that has travelled through a ship across | continents and has survived for 200 years and now is in my | collection. Pre-stamp letters go for very little, especially | North American, British and really for a song for most European | countries. | | The bitcoin of the early eighties was 'getting into hard | assets'. Lots of funds invested into stamps and drove prices to | levels that collectors couldn't buy. They burnt their fingers, | while collectors waited. It is still a huge market possibly 3-5 | billion USD a year. As an investment I would not recommend | them, but as a nice indoor hobby and to socialize outside your | own circle is worth it. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-17 23:00 UTC)