Despite the common perception that stamp and coin collecting are very similar, there are very few collectors who do both. Among youngsters, maintaining both types of collections is more customary, but at higher levels, it is very unusual to find people who are passionately devoted to both hobbies. Maybe it is unusual for any specialty collector in any field (say buttons) to be passionate about a seemingly allied collecting field (say, antique sewing thread), but the difference between philately and numismatics seems, to collectors in both fields, to be vast. We philatelists think of ourselves as scholarly and erudite