Sun, Mar 03, 2024 page2

• FEATURE: Chunghwa Post looking to revive stamp collecting

  • By Ting Yi and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  The ubiquitous nature of online messaging has made handwritten letters all but disappear, and the number of stamp collectors has more than halved over the past decade, Chunghwa Post said.

  Ten years ago there were 31,000 long-term subscribers to Chunghwa Post’s stamp-collecting program, but today there are only 15,000 subscribers, the company said.

  “In the past, there were not so many recreational activities for young people, and stamp collecting was considered a fun way to make friends,” Chunghwa Post Philately Division head Cheng Li-hua (鄭麗華) said. “Nowadays, everyone has a smartphone and there are video games and other forms of entertainment.”

  

  Chunghwa Post stamps celebrating the 400th anniversary of Tainan’s founding are pictured on Feb. 20.

  Photo courtesy of Chunghwa Post

  Describing stamps as “the nation’s business card,” Cheng said Chunghwa Post hopes to find innovative ways to make young people interested in stamp collecting again.

  The company sends stamps to subscribers every time it issues new editions, and sends color test stamps and cards to subscribers every Lunar New Year, she added.

  Cheng said that stamp collecting could be introduced to elementary-school students as a fun extracurricular activity, and the company could send its printed stamp-collectors’ newspaper, Oriental Stamp News (東方郵報), to classrooms for students’ reference.

  

  Postage stamps featuring Taiwan’s zhuyin fuhao phonetic alphabet, also known as “bopomofo,” are pictured in an undated photograph.

  Photo courtesy of Chunghwa Post

  Teachers could also be provided with courses on stamp collecting during summer vacations, and local stamp-collecting experts could be invited to speak in classrooms, she said.

  Stamps are divided into three categories: those commonly used as postage; commemorative stamps used to mark special events; and special themed stamps, she said.

  “Before the 1970s, the Republic of China [ROC] commonly issued stamps featuring the national flag, the head of state, National Palace Museum and Taiwan’s abundant fruits,” she said. “The main reason for using these images was that, in the early days, authorities wanted to promote the country through stamps.”

  Sending letters with those stamps to other countries allowed people elsewhere to become familiarized with Taiwan and its president, and the ROC flag, she said.

  “Later, the themes of Taiwan’s stamps gradually diversified to include things like Taiwan’s indigenous animals and local festivals,” she added.

  Other ideas that the postal company was exploring to make stamps interesting for young people include making themed stamps with cartoon characters by local artists or international companies such as Peanuts and Sanrio, Chunghwa Post secretary-general Yang Su-chu (楊素珠) said.

  Stamp-collecting enthusiast Hsu Yao-fang (許耀方) is more optimistic about the future.

  Hsu said that despite decreased interest, stamp collecting was still profitable.

  Younger people are less interested in stamp collecting than before, but there are still many older collectors, he said.

  However, with the Internet making information on stamps more transparent, profits for trading stamps has decreased, and the business might not be sustainable in the long term, he said.

  “In the 1990s there was massive speculation on stamp prices, and many people collected stamps as a form of investment,” a collector surnamed Yang (楊) said. “If someone bought stamps in the 1970s and 1980s and sold them in the 1990s, they would probably have made a fortune.”

  However, following the growing interest in stamps at the time and the large circulation volume of stamps issued by Chunghwa Post, the market subsequently collapsed, he said, adding that only a few stamps issued since the 1990s have experienced value increases.

  One avid collector named Hsiao Shih-cheng (蕭士誠) recalled once traveling the world to look for stamps related to dentistry, and said that many younger collectors today in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea — where stamp collecting was once hugely popular — do not stick with the hobby for very long.

  “It will only be old people collecting stamps in the future, but as long as the post office continues to issue stamps, there will always be people who collect them,” he said. “People who are keen on collecting stamps do not think of it as an investment, but rather as a pastime with a goal. If you get into it as an investment, you will not stick with it.”
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