FROM THE FRINGES: Stamp-collecting, a hobby still evolving

FROM THE FRINGES: Stamp-collecting, a hobby still evolving

By Jerome Aning | July 10, 2026

A year-long self-imposed sabbatical from media work enabled this writer to finally find time to get back to his long-neglected hobby of stamp-collecting and philately. I spent the past few months trying to complete a representative collection of post-war and postcolonial stamps from every country and territory. Being a journalist as well as a history and geography buff, I mostly collect stamps featuring people, events and places.

A fellow hobbyist whom I reconnected with lamented that stamp-collecting is already a dying hobby, adding that people nowadays rarely or no longer send “snail mail” anymore. He wondered whether postal authorities are merely printing stamps intended for collecting rather than for actual mailing.

Stamp collecting, I replied, might, indeed, be losing popularity and could already be considered a niche hobby, but it’s just evolving, not dying. For as long as postal authorities produce stamps (and earn from them), stamp collecting will exist. Stamp collecting is one area of philately, or the study of postage stamps and postal history. So even if postal services stop printing stamps, philately will survive, since there will be plenty of old stamps to study.

Creative teams of postal services around the world are also challenged to produce interesting stamps that are worth one’s effort (and money) collecting. Last month, the philatelic division of the Philippine Postal Corp. came up with impressive stamps about 75th anniversary of the Unesco National Commission of the Philippines, the 125th anniversary of the Supreme Court, the birth sesquicentennials of Gregoria de Jesus, Emilio Jacinto and Gregorio del Pilar, and the 50th anniversary of Philippine-Russian diplomatic relations.

My interest in philately started during my late teenage years, thanks to an uncle whose collection I inherited before he passed away. His stamps came from personal and business letters, and from the stamp exchange club that he joined in the high school where the taught. My mother and paternal grandmother also encouraged me my giving stamps from letters sent by relatives and friends from the provinces or living or working overseas. In the age before email and chat messages, the exchange of letters was the cheaper way (compared to telephone and telegram) of long-distance communication with loved ones. Thus, one could say that my early stamp collection was a product of the Filipino diaspora.

Stamp-collecting continued to be an interest through my years as a newspaper reporter but as I got busier building a career in journalism, there was less and less free time to collect, much less study, stamps. Few, random additions to my collection in the past two decades came from fan mail and letters to editors, and from the stamp shop of the Manila Central Post Office which I try to visit whenever I have a news coverage nearby. I regard myself as a veteran stamp collector but merely an amateur philatelist.

With information about new stamps issued here and abroad spreading faster online and with the internet providing faster and easier ways to acquire them, there is hope that stamp collecting as a hobby, as well as philately, will continue to thrive. Like with other hobbies, it was the internet that led to the evolution of stamp collecting and as a Gen Xer, I witnessed and experienced this evolution.

Yes, fewer people are sending letters, which means there were also fewer stamps being physically spread around through post. However, the internet provided stamp collectors a faster way to connect with other collectors as well as with stamp dealers. Old stamps are being sold individually or by bulk by relatives of deceased collectors via online marketplaces. Social media groups have been set up where hobbyists can buy, sell, exchange, or even give away, stamps, souvenir sheets and first-day covers. Specialized websites offer philatelists free space to host and curate their personal catalogs. There are now mobile apps that use AI to identify a particular stamp, complete with its history and technical specifications, and where a collector may acquire one.

Understandably, with the decreasing number of letters being sent by mail, the number of stamps printed (particularly the so-called standard or definitive stamps) are also being reduced, from millions in the previous century to just a few thousands nowadays. This and the fact that the number of used stamps is also dwindling, means that stamps available for collecting are, increasingly, the unused ones which tend to be more expensive. These are the stamps in mint or pristine condition, meaning they came straight from the post office, and the so-called canceled-to-order stamps, or the unsold ones that have not traveled by mail and were eventually canceled by the issuing postal service to be sold later to collectors.

Nowadays, a great number of younger hobbyists are into thematic or topical stamps. They collect stamps by subject instead of by country or of year of issuance. Stamps about animals, plants, space, sports, art, or cartoon characters are more popular than ever. Some older collectors frown on thematic collections over quality issues, but I felt rather pleased when I tried mounting separate albums for stamps that feature cats, mushrooms and chess.

In his 1994 proclamation declaring November of every year as National Stamp Collecting Month, President Fidel V. Ramos sought to focus public attention on the value and significance of philately, saying it “will provide our people, especially the youth, with deeper knowledge of our history, culture, and traditions, as well as of the rest of the world.”

This was echoed in a newsletter issued in 1997 by the Manila Stamp Collectors Club (MSCC) which advised that encouraging the younger generation to collect stamps “will increase their knowledge of history, geography and current world affairs, stimulate their minds, as well as provide a healthy outlet for young energy.”

Incidentally, the MSCC was the first stamp club to go online. Among its founders is Ms Josefina Cura, one of the country’s eminent stamp dealers and philatelists. As for President Ramos, he and his achievements were the subject of various stamps issued during his presidency and after he passed away in 2022.

The newsletter article summed up why stamp collecting will always be a worthwhile recreation: “Stamp collecting has been called ‘the hobby of kings and the king of hobbies.’ But it is even more than just a hobby or an investment. It serves as a medium of education for both young or old, rich or poor. A collection may be large, or it may be small, but size has little to do with the pleasure to be derived from each stamp in a collection.”

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Comments are welcome on my Facebook Page @fromthefringesph and at <nationweek@yahoo.com>.

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