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Chapter 5. Stamp Department

In the preceding section we have had much to say about the stamp dealer. Now let us understand the stamp department of a great department store. Of course these, too, are stamp dealers and are just as much a part and parcel of the hobby as the stamp dealers we have been discussing. But under the able leadership of a man of amazing insight the stamp department of a department store fulfills its own special place in the world of Philately.

As we have seen, the hobby traces its origin back to the period shortly after stamps were first issued to the advertisement of the English lady who desired to accumulate enough "penny blacks" to paper her room. Of course this was hardly stamp collecting as it is known today. But within a few years after this inauspicious beginning the great stamp firm of Stanley Gibbons was founded in London and certainly by the 1870's the late John W. Scott had established in this country the firm that was to bear his name. Both of these gentlemen were pioneers and promoters. Both realized the necessity of spreading word of the new hobby and both published a great many magazines, albums and catalogs of postage stamps of the world.

Yet it is hardly possible that a hobby, which started in such immature desires as the wish of a young lady to pretty up her bedroom should grow to its present impressive importance unless there had constantly been leaders to promote its growth. Gibbons and Scott were such leaders. Yet were either alive today it is not likely they would recognize the vast avocation they had created. New leaders were needed to keep the hobby abreast of the changing times and new leaders have constantly appeared to keep the hobby a living thing.

And, of course, with the passing years there were more and more stamps. With the vicissitudes of war more and more nations passed into oblivion or were newly created, all of which issued postage stamps. This multitude of new stamps and new nations created a change in the hobby of collecting stamps. The problem of providing albums and catalogs for all of the world's stamps became ever more pressing and the followers of the hobby began to "specialize". They limited their collecting interests to the stamps of a single country, a group of countries or a particular kind of stamp. This limiting of one's collection was a boom to the existing album and catalog publishers who, following the trend, aided and abetted it by publishing specialized albums. For a while it appeared that the collecting of stamps all stamps was to be thwarted by this lack of desire to accept the challenge presented. It was much easier for the album publisher to "go along with the gag"-much easier for the stamp dealer to "specialize", build a collection of some particular nation or subject and ignore all other stamps.

But the great mass of stamp collectors were at heart stamp collectors. They didn't want to advance or pursue a hobby in which their activities were restricted by lack of albums or lack of places where they could obtain stamps. Nor did this great backwash of collectors, who were the very warp and woof of the hobby, relish the idea of being forced to go to special stamp stores usually upstairs where they had to state their desires according to catalog numbers and be embarrassed because they didn't know about such things and only wished to make a modest purchase at best.

Into this situation came the stamp department of the large Department Stores. At first such departments merely handled packets and the available stamp albums. The manager of one such department, Jacques Minkus, in Gimbels New York City store, became ever more frustrated at his inability, from the material available, to meet the demands of his clients. More and more he saw the need for better stamp albums, and catalogs. Larger selections of stamps then were available in the "Packets". He sensed, perhaps more than he actually perceived, the demand for stamps and stamp albums for "the man in the street". What he quite probably did not perceive was that stamp collecting needed a leader. Someone to show the way back to the basic principles that had made the hobby so attractive to millions through the world. Jacques Minkus set out to supply the demands of his clients. He listened carefully to all complaints and then published albums designed to meet the collectors' real needs. Then, in 1953, he began publishing a completely new catalog of the postage stamps of the world, a project completed in 1957. In so doing he broke the bonds that had held the hobby to a single mentor in guiding its steps.

View of the Gimbels famous stamp department in New York City Designed by Raymond Loewy.

The Minkus albums and catalogs became an almost overnight success and lead to his opening stamp departments in many of the leading department stores from coast to coast, with more to come just as fast as he can staff them with competent help.

Perhaps my reader will wonder why I have devoted so much space to the story of Jacques Minkus. It is because that he, through his many stamp departments in the finest stores of the major cities of our nation, has brought stamp collecting back to "Main Street." In the most important stores of almost any great city of our nation the person who is "just a collector"-who desires only to ask a few questions and remain anonymous may find a place exactly suited to his needs. He may inspect, without fear of being asked to buy something, the thousands of stamps on display. He may ask questions and receive courteous answers, may inspect at first hand the various stamp albums, catalogs and accessories that are available. And, if he desires, may make a purchase in complete anonymity free to go his way and never return if he wishes. Mostly they do return and mostly they appreciate their anonymity. Some, of course, became great friends and favored clients but this takes place only when the buyer wishes it to be so.

Because this is so, many, many thousands of new collectors have taken up the hobby, many thousands of albums and catalogs are sold and all stamp dealers and album publishers have greatly benefited from the multitudes of anonymous collectors who visit the stamp department of a great store. It is from these that the advanced collectors of tomorrow are developed.

Young stamp collectors in Gimbles famous stamp department in New York City.

This new way to sell stamps has broadened the base of the hobby immeasurably and has, indeed, brought stamp collecting out of the stifling "Specialization" period into the free and open desires of the individual. The stamp department of a great store is a fine place to begin collecting stamps your needs of the myriad services they perform will never be completely outgrown however advanced you may become.

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