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Originally Posted by Balticfox
That possibility has also crossed my mind. It seems that interest in stamp collecting evaporated as baby boomers found other alternatives that had more meaning to them, e.g. bubble gum cards, comics, the toys they remembered from their formative years, even gold & silver coins since many remembered having silver coins in their pockets once upon a time.
I'm therefore interested in why you think such a quantum change in collecting interests is unlikely. From all reports, things have changed in the schoolyard and kids aren't collecting the same ways as were kids fifty+ years ago. Not only do they not collect the same kind of cards, their mindset behind collecting is now very different.
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It's a good question, and my knowledge of the stamp world is superficial at best, which is why I can't answer with extreme confidence.
But my understanding is that a big part of the issue with the stamp world is that eBay exposed the fact that there was a lot more material out there than previously thought. Obviously eBay did not have a negative impact on our world, at least it hasn't caused values to crater.
Separately, it sounds like part of the challenge is also that governments went nuts with flooding the market with stamps. I suppose in some ways this is analogous to the junk wax era in our world. Luckily, the flooding of the cardboard market in the modern era didn't negatively impact values for vintage cardboard.
As with any collecting endeavor, the biggest issue is whether the next generation steps up and buys the stuff when generations turn over. And I guess we can all question whether that's a problem for us here. Certainly based on reports, it sounds like plenty of youngsters are showing up at card shows and are collecting cardboard. So perhaps there is room for optimism on this score.
I do think that the long-term viability of baseball as a sport could also be a factor. While baseball is not nearly as popular relative to other sports as it was 70 years ago, and it seems like there are always hints that it's waning in popularity, the business overall seems to keep humming along just fine. We'll see whether the Star Trek prediction about the demise of baseball ends up coming true.