Collectors stick with stamps

By Shaun Inguanzo
AGEING stamp collectors say they’re not licked yet and have launched a recruitment drive to tackle their falling numbers .
They want younger people to get stuck into stamp collecting to maintain the relevance of their historical pursuit.
Seventy-one-year-old Peter Jenkins is the proud owner of one of the rarest and most famous stamps in the world and the chairman of the Dandenong Philatelic Society.
The Penny Black stamp featuring a portrait of the young Queen Victoria in 1840 was the first adhesive stamp ever to be produced and the first pre-paid postage stamp.
Stamp collector and chairman of the Dandenong Philatelic Society Peter Jenkins is one of the lucky few whose anthology of British stamps contains one of the 68 million Penny Blacks produced.
Mr Jenkins says that although 68 million Penny Blacks were produced, the stamp is now hard to come by.
Now valued at $150, his Penny Black is now the most expensive stamp in his collection.
“I have been collecting stamps for a while. I started off in a small way probably in the 1960s or something like that,” he said.
“I have been a serious collector since 1975.”
Mr Jenkins says that people are drawn to collecting via other hobbies whose topics are represented on stamps. A fan of Winston Churchill and warships, Mr Jenkins collects stamps relating to those themes.
Unfortunately, the hobby could vanish as a profile of the Dandenong Philatelic Society reveals that its membership is aged 50 and above and that the club is failing to attract younger members.
Mr Jenkins said the group is now appealing for new members, young or old, or anyone curious about the hobby, to attend one of the society’s meetings on the fourth Wednesday of each month at the Dandenong Library from 7.30pm onwards.
“We have guest speakers, quizzes, displays and each meeting has its own mini stamp-auction,” he said.
Mr Jenkins is optimistic that stamp collecting will not disappear due to disinterest, and like the Penny Black, will continue its historical legacy.
“I think (stamp collecting) is one of those things that goes in cycles and you have periods where the interest seems to die-off, but all of a sudden something happens and it sparks up again.”
For more information about stamp collecting or the Dandenong Philatelic Society, contact Peter Jenkins on 9700 1277.