Philately has been a pretty consistent hobby in terms of popularity since its earliest days. Stamp collecting is not for everyone. It appeals most to intelligent, reflective people and goes well with a splash of introversion. Philately began as a diversionary hobby, more of a game to see how many different stamps you could obtain, though by the 1880's stamp collecting had developed into the hobby that we have today, complete with catalogs and societies and literature. Slow and steady growth has marked most of our hobby's history-though there have been three great spikes of philatelic interest.
The first spike occurred in the 1890's and was responsible for a huge increase in new collectors, new issues and albums coming on the market. The second large spike in popularity was during the 1930's and the last was in the 1970's. What is interesting is that all three spikes in the popularity of our hobby occurred in times of unprecedented economic upheaval. The Panic of 1893, which occurred around the first spike, was the great depression in the pre-1929 period. The spike in the 1930's coincided with the Great Depression. And the 1970's was the decade of great inflation and fear over the value of paper currency. Perhaps this is an interesting coincidence and nothing more. Or perhaps economic stress turns people to hobbies like philately where money spent has more return than money spent on things such as travel and cars. But if these spikes were more than a coincidence we should have seen an increase in philatelic popularity in that last few years as our current Great Recession certainly has produced enough economic disruption.