The future of stamp collecting will be influenced by two great positives and one serious negative. The negative is as follows: Stamps (and postal communication in general) are increasingly irrelevant to our world. Letters with stamps on them are getting rarer. Electronic communication gains a larger market share each year. It is likely that even ten years from now most people will print postal labels from their computers to pay postage on the few remaining first class letters that are sent. New Issue stamps will become a fringe market issued solely for philatelists like Franklin Mint collector’s plates. Electronic games and the ubiquity of entertainment on demand has made stamp collecting (and most intellectual hobbies) seem quaint and old fashioned.
Against this are two great positives. First, the baby boomers are reaching their peak collecting years and will increasingly turn to the hobby of their youth as their tennis elbow and achy knees limit their physical activities. Add to this ever increasing life spans for the middle and upper classes and you have more active collectors collecting longer. And second, the Internet which moves our youth away from our hobby moves older more casually interested people back in. Any insomniac can be collecting again in a matter of minutes and sales of philatelic material across international borders which used to be so difficult is really only a click away. My best guess is that the positives are stronger in the twenty year short term and the negatives stronger in the longer haul. Look for some very popular years ahead for stamp collecting.