I have an interest in airliners and one of the magazines (or maybe
both) decorate the readers' mail pages with airliner topical stamps. I
wonder if any of those stamps pictured spark any interest in our hobby.

Dave (oddly enough, I don't collect airliner stamps)
"Tracy Barber" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 04 Nov 2003 19:42:27 GMT, "Dave"
wrote:

I have to wonder sometimes if there is a future. Here in Rochester
it
has been very rare for anything philatelic to ever get mentioned in the
news
media. The one exception has been the RPA annual show, but even that is
a
quick soundbite that you could miss if you happened to sneeze at that
moment.

Same with smAlbany. But, stampin' still goes on.

I offered to the local newspaper, the Democrat & Chronicle, to write
for them a short weekly stamp collecting feature. For free no less!
Sorry,
not interested. I can remember as a boy the Sunday newspaper had a
regular
stamp feature; part "how-to" and part new issues news. Haven't seen
anything like that since.

That would be a cool feature. I haven't subscribed to a local rag in
a few years. Never make time to really read it.

When I lived in Hong Kong the South China Daily Post had a regular
stamp feature, sometimes several times a week.

Kewl... as the kids would say!

Kids, or anyone else for that matter, will not be attracted to our
hobby if they never hear about it. Like lemmings people at the post
office
buy the "flag & whatever" stamp offered by clerks who seem brainwashed
that
the commemoratives are "collectables".
Could any of the following promote our hobby?:
local stamp clubs sponsor school stamp club activities

Seminars, small bourses, etc.

PO clerks offer commemoratives to customers

Tough one to "enforce". A nicety. But - unless one is totally blind,
there are usually posters on the walls showing off the latest this and
that stamp. Several post offices where I live actually have sheetlets
of said stamps out in glass cases that are directly in the path of the
incoming traffic.

Commems are not hidden. Many people are just lazy and ask for the
"usual". I think that's more prevalent than not. It's not important
to the average customer.

Having P.O. employees - "May I interest you in our latest whiz-bang
comemorative stamp" might be taking it a bit too far.

newspaper philatelic features

Tough to break into, unless one has "contacts" and is politically
correct with the times.

organize stamp clubs in various civic groups, etc.

Has to be the interest there.

work with boy and girls scouts

Some of that is done now. My free stamps have been passed on to many
merit badge wannabes!

there's probably more I'm sure.

Well... I have been doing some decent surfing over the past 3 years or
more and have found sites that weren't stamp sites suddenly showing
stamps to enhance their pages. Of course, YMMV.

Sports, history, hobby pages. Some found on pages that one would not
think of seeing stamps, stamps were used to illustrate something.

Whether or not this "rings a bell", maybe it plants a seed or triggers
some mnemonic response and one starts collecting topicals. Sooner or
later, they run out of that topical and may start a new one.

You can lead a horse to water...

Tracy Barber