It is busy in the Maaspoorthal in Den Bosch. Rows of tables, stacks of albums and, above all, many older men bent over stamps with magnifying glasses or tweezers. The ‘s-Hertogenbossche Philatelistenvereniging is celebrating its 95th anniversary, which attracts collectors from all over the country to the main hall. Between them, perhaps the oldest and the youngest visitor to the fair.
Wim Teeuwissen from Huizen bends over an album with tweezers. With his magnifying glass he looks carefully at a blue seal. “Yes, I need that magnifying glass to see them properly,” he says. Wim is 61 years old. “I might be the youngest one here.”
He is visibly satisfied with his finds. “I have already found a lot of stamps that I don’t have yet. It’s fun because you try to complete it. Just like in the past with the football pictures.”
Yet he sees with dismay how the hobby is aging. “I think it’s a shame that there are no young people. I tried to get my children enthusiastic about collecting. But that didn’t work. Stamp collecting is going to die out. I don’t think stamps will be worth much anymore.”
Jan de Swart from Eindhoven sits at another table. His walker is next to him, but his hands do not shake as he painstakingly turns page after page. Jan is 90 years old. He is particularly interested in stamps with trains. “Yes, trains and stamps, fantastic,” he says, beaming. “The majority of my collection consists of stamps with trains. I already have several countries complete.”
He has been collecting for over eighty years. “I’ve been searching all my life. That’s the life of the collector. Always keep looking. You keep looking for that one. You have to be lucky. I’ll just scrape something off because I have plenty of time.”
His love for the hobby started during wartime. “I received the first envelope from Curaçao in 1943. That’s where I started.” The brain is still fit, he says, but the body is letting him down a bit. “Stamp collecting is still possible.”
Ab de Bruin from Den Bosch is bent over a so-called dime book, a book in which each stamp costs ten cents. “If I see something I like, I buy it. I hope to find something valuable, but that won’t be easy.”
He has been a member of the Den Bosch association for 66 years and has forty albums at home. “They are about ninety percent complete. So I have already made a lot of progress. I am only missing the more expensive stamps. I am willing to pay sixty euros for one stamp if I do not already have it in my collection. So I am really an enthusiastic philatelist.”
Stamps are his lifelong passion. “I’ve been doing this since I was sixteen. Now I’m retired and you need something to pass the time. Collecting stamps is perfect for that. It’s very versatile. The world is big and all countries issue stamps. So I still have something to do.”
But Ab also sees the same problem as Wim. “Will there also be new 16-year-olds? No, that is not easy. The youth no longer want to be involved. That is the big problem with our hobby. The real collectors are dying out and no new ones are emerging. Yes, so be it.”
He does believe that good stamps retain their value. “The better stamps are still sold for very high prices.” Yet Wim says that you should not invest too much in stamps. “No, I wouldn’t do it as an investment.”