WHY DO WE LOVE COLLECTING?
Every stamp collector has experienced it. After several years the difficult used value of a long butterfly set from an island state finally shows up. Or, one day after years of looking through dealers’ cover boxes, what pops up but an example of a postmark that was known to exist but had never been seen.
The feeling of success, of exultation, of euphoria, is well out of proportion to what might be logically ascribed to the assembly of a few bits of hardly pristine paper, or the acquisition of a slightly soiled envelope with an ink imprint only slightly different than thousands of others.
To true collectors, however, this feeling is as real as the floor beneath them or a pay packet at the end of a hard week’s work. And, collectors might be surprised to learn, it is just as real and understandable to psychologists. For, to use a bit of psychological
