Great Britain Philatelic Society

It appears that specialist collection is killing off general collection - and that specialisation itself is failing through lack of support.

Obviously the quantity of stamps etc which are issued and the price of them has much to do with this.

However if stamp collecting is to continue, it is time to consider what is being done now and what might be changed.

The Royal Mail only sells what the varied collectors will buy - thus it is no good moaning about over production or even costs. It was ever thus. Many collectors find, at some time, they cannot afford items they would like and may not even be able to find them if they could.

General collection however still went on - but it doas not appear to do so today

I have to agree, many can't keep up with the endless new issues and many set a cutoff point at decimalization or 2000 etc.

Just keeping up must financially restrain many from completing older sets of stamps.

When I was collecting machins I did the same

now interested in Channel Islands the same criteria is used.

However I have very rarely bought material from Philatelic Bureaux - second hand and cheaper or from a dealer when material was what I knew was good. However good it was i lost out because it was all sold TOO SOON