Gather together

Angela Watson remembers the pleasure of collecting stamps during childhood. Whenever friends and family gave her stamps, especially from foreign countries, she would study them.

Then she would turn to the Encyclopaedia Britannica for more information.

“Stamps provided a large part of my education in history, geography, science and nature,'' says Watson of Long Beach, California.

Today far fewer youngsters are involved in the traditional “big three'' of children's collecting — stamps, coins and sports cards.

Recreation rivalry

Watson says: “Getting kids interested in ‘traditional' hobbies is difficult because we're competing with video games, skateboards and TV.''

That leaves adult collectors scrambling to find ways to draw a new generation of enthusiasts.

“Kids used to collect stamps because it was a glimpse into a world you couldn't see just by turning on a computer as they can today,'' says Will Seippel, a father of five and CEO of WorthPoint, a database for collectibles.

Gary Sohmers of Framingham, Massachusetts, who appraises collectibles for the Antiques Roadshow on PBS, finds that collecting teaches children about maintaining objects and sharing collections with friends and family. It also offers lessons in fair trade.

In sports collectibles, Major League Baseball and the sports card companies have conducted marketing campaigns to continue to attract youngsters to the hobby.

The internet is also changing the world of collecting. As founder of CoinTalk.com, an online community of coin collectors, Peter Davis provides a way for older collectors to mentor youngsters.

“One of the things younger collectors have to face today is the massive influx of Chinese counterfeit coins into the hobby,'' he says.

David Steinberger of New York, who collected comics when he was a boy, finds that comic book collectors today are generally viewed as an ageing population.

“Younger comic book readers generally don't view it as a collecting passion but as a reading passion,'' he says.

“Young readers are more likely to buy collected editions or download copies online.''

Past times

Mike Heffner, president of Lelands.com, a sports and pop culture memorabilia auction house, began collecting baseball cards when he was 7. “The hobby has changed much over the years,'' he says.

“Technology has taken over the simplicity of collecting.''
Collecting is more expensive and more businesslike, he adds.

In addition, today's instant-gratification culture does not allow for the gradual appreciation of collected items.

When Heffner was 10, he bought a box of baseball cards and stored it, unopened, under his bed until he turned 18.

“I knew the cards would be worth more if the box remained unopened,'' he says.

“I paid about $6 (Dh22) for that box of cards and sold it eight years later for $500 (Dh1,836). I don't know if kids today have that same discipline.''

Sohmers says, when parents and their kids collect together, “it is a way to bond and teach, whether it's picking up stones or stuffing leaves in a book. Preserving the past is better than trying to recapture it.''