Philately Goes Online

The Times of India reports,"From being a quaint hobby nurtured by being friends with the postman, asking relatives and pen pals to send stamps from abroad or by simply buying them from postal bureaus, philately has mostly gone online. Earlier, philatelic research involved many trips to museums, subscribing to stamp magazines and catalogues and a great deal of letter writing. But the internet has changed the way philatelists and collectors of postal paraphernalia go about pursuing their passion. In the process, it has attracted many young collectors."

Reporter Shreya Roy Chowdhury writes, "Even casual collectors like 27-year-old Ganesh Bhausaheb Potphode have become serious philatelists courtesy the net. Potphode, who lives in Saudi Arabia started off simply collecting all kinds of stamps when he was in high school. Once he started using the net, philately went from being just a hobby to becoming an all-consuming pursuit. Potphode has undertaken some serious cramming to learn philatelic terms, gathered information on specific stamps and started a blog dedicated to his collection.

Chowdhury goes on to say, "A keen stamp collector for about 50 years and editor of Stanley Gibbons catalogues and magazines, Hugh Jeffries too feels the internet can never replace the pleasure of talking directly to fellow stamp collectors or making purchases across a counter. He believes that ferreting out information published in books that have long been out of print and journals dating back several centuries and exploring museums and specialist libraries, are far more enriching than checking online catalogues."

Shown above a 1997 stamp from Palau showing Donald Duck and his nephews doing some research on the Internet - all of whom are no doubt stamp collectors.

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