FEPA News

FEPA NEWS 45 44 Developments in Philately Engaging the next generation: How record-setting sales can promote philately Jack Preuveneers, an up-and-coming philatelist in the UK, offers a point of view: In FEPA News 43 I wrote a short article on ‘Engaging the Next Generation: Empowering Youth in Philately’. This article seeks to be a follow-up after a year of mulling on thoughts. Something I have been pondering is that most philatelists abstain from talking about money. It is well documented that the past has been marred with philatelic investment schemes that have bombed, but the nature of money involved in philately is inherently fascinating and draws in a wide audience. It is my belief that discussion of money within philately should not be taboo but should be encouraged and promoted. Pieces of paper selling for millions is inherently interesting, right? Take the video below by Tom Scott on the 1c Magenta. It received over 5 million engagements (views), 250,000 people rated it positively, and over 7,250 took the time to comment. Numbers of this sort are unheard of in philatelic media, so why did it do so well? The simple answer is it was talking about money. A glance at the comments shows that there is interest in this intersection of philately and finance. Each of these comments had hundreds to thousands of positive engagements. It’s very common for the media to publish articles about monetary world records. On 14th June 2023 the BBC had a trending news article entitled “Sale of Roger Smith pocket watch sets new world record of £3.8M”. It’s an inherently interesting read but did the BBC or any other major news outlet report on David Feldman selling the Inverted Mon for €5.4M a week earlier? No... I am sure if articles were published and they received 100,000 views then at least 100 would consider collecting in hopes of finding the next big item. This might need to be pushed by governing bodies or auction houses more so than the individual but I am certain that if major media outlets received one article a month about philately relating to record-breaking sales or history with relevance to current affairs, they would be very willing to clickbait the title for their engagement too.