Many groups have little written history of their activities. Among literate societies this is because the group itself is considered tangential to what the people involved are doing or are trying to accomplish. Thus you have, for instance, hundreds of academic historians in this country writing about history and many writing about how to write history and even some writing about the history of writing history. But stories and background of the historians themselves are not written about. Maybe historians aren’t very interesting. But stamp collectors and professional philatelists are. And most of the history of our hobby, it’s origins and appeal and stories that elucidate why we do what we do today, has gotten lost. The stories are there. But collectors are too busy writing and talking about the technical aspects of their hobby, and only address orally the fascinations that brought them to philately in the first place, and the stories of their early years collecting.
I am in the process of recording interviews with interesting collectors and dealers (in podcasts that will be available on our website). We are interviewing older philatelists who have great influence on our hobby and who have much to say about the way the hobby was and where they think it is going. The podcasts should be interesting to listen to and we hope that you will enjoy them. But our reason for doing this is more than just fun. It is to maintain for the next generation of collectors the collective wisdom of the current generation of people for whom philately is important. When I was a young person beginning in stamps I had the opportunity to listen to many people who are today legends in our hobby. They are all long gone now and no recordings of their reminiscences exists. This series will make tomorrow’s legends available to all.