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| The Stamp King of California |
This was a picture from my local paper this week. The local stamp collectors club held a "youth day" to get kids interested in stamp collecting. They had over twenty kids show up. For stamps! They had raffles, stamp-related games, and a big pile o' free stamps. Everything a stamp-loving youth could want.
I couldn't help but see the parallels between the stamp collecting and the card collecting hobby spheres. According to the event's organizer:
"It's a dying hobby, and a lot of us that are members have been collecting over 50 years," he said. "This is a wonderful hobby that's taught us all about history and geography." The club is primarily made up of older adults averaging 65 years old. "We still have a lot of fun with our hobby, and we're trying to educate our young people that there's more to life than video games," he said."
It went on to talk to a couple of the old-timers and how much their stamps were worth. These guys didn't even care since the stamps had such sentimental value to them.
Could you not write that exact same thing about the card collecting world? As the average age of collectors continues to creep up, take a look at what could happen to the hobby if you don't get kids excited about it. It could be relegated to the Senior Citizen center.
But these folks are not going down without a fight. They are investing some time and money into these kids. I think it was a great idea to have an event specifically for them. And the kids seemed to love it.
"I have about 1,023 stamps," one boy said. Do you remember those days when you first started collecting cards and knew EXACTLY how many cards you had?? That's the level of passion that was being ignited there.
Could this be done in the card collecting world? Could the hobby shops or a group of collectors in a city band together to stage an event like this?
Have these things:
- Card and memorabilia displays
- Games
- Raffles (for cards and binders/pages/boxes),
- Snacks
- A giant pile of free cards (with the local teams well-represented)
- Make sure every kid goes home with 50-100 cards and info on where they can get more.
- Post it on Craigslist, email it to the Little League coaches, and submit it to the local paper.
- Make it all FREE
Has anyone ever seen this happen? Do you think it would work?
