There are three broad traits that philatelists share with each other. The first is inquisitiveness. Many very intelligent people are quite content with what they know. They do well in their professions and in their life, and their idle time is spent being entertained. Others, people who are receptive to our hobby, love to learn and know about things, and find information and facts interesting. They collect knowledge, and its an easy transition for them to collect stamps.The second trait that people with a philatelic predilection share is that they are savers. Sure, they have bank accounts as successful adults, often large ones, but they also had bank accounts when they were little pipsqueaks and always left aside a little for later even when in school and in times in their life when they were decidedly not financially well off. In the parlance of fable, stamp collectors are ants, not grasshoppers. The distinction is one of the fundamental differences in how people view life and underpins the decisions that we make about career and marriage. It also is why for many philatelists stamp collecting is a lifelong hobby rather than a passing interest. The aspirations of our hobby connects to who they are.
Third, people break down again into two broad groups: those who are goal driven and those who are process driven. Obviously, all stamp collectors have goals— the next stamp that they need or the fantasy of completion. But at its core, philately has goals that everyone knows are unobtainable. Virtually no one ever completes any but the easiest country, and no one ever completed a collection of the world, though some very wealthy and devoted philatelists attempted this in the early part of the last century when that goal was only tremendously difficult, not totally impossible as it is today. People who like the process enjoy the search and the intellectual aspects of our hobby. For them, the philatelic process is a lifelong joy.