It has long been predicted that the maturing of the Baby Boom generation would usher in an era of great philatelic popularity. Citing philatelic and demographic trends, the theory was based on the fact that serious collectors fit a certain profile (men 55-75) and that the maturing of the Baby Boom generation meant that there would be a huge increase of people meeting these criteria. Men (and nearly all serious collectors are male) who collected stamps as children and then reconnect with their early hobby in the later years of their life have always been the mainspring of serious philately. This group has always made up the majority of the membership of the American Philatelic Society and the subscriber base of Linns and other philatelic magazines. These are people with the free time and the disposable income to indulge a serious hobby and the prediction was that our hobby would grow when the maturing Baby Boomers came of age.
1957 was the the Baby Boom year with the greatest number of births and these people turn 55 next year. The current growth in philately is noticeable. APS membership and Linns subscribers have stagnated but that is more of a feature of the Internet age than of the popularity of stamp collecting. One couldn’t be an active collector a generation ago without an APS membership or a Linns subscription. Today, these entries into the philatelic portal are obsolete. What we are finding here over the last couple years is a steady influx of new collectors consistent with the prediction that the Boomers will create a philatelic bloom as they return to the hobby of their youth.