Post Office Goes Live Cont.

The best part of the news that the United States Post Office is going to be issuing stamps honoring living persons is the effect it should have on our hobby. This has two aspects. First, and less obviously, it shows that even with the technological advances that have made  postage stamps less important, the Post Office remains committed to popularizing philately and encouraging people to collect. There was doubt about this-surely given the huge deficits of the Post Office it was very possible that the mere millions that philately makes for them could get lost in the accounting scramble of a reorganization and we would find ourselves in a relatively stampless world. This could still happen but it now seems less likely. Further, many were afraid that part of any future postal reorganization would be the demonetization of older postage that is held in philatelic hands. This would have a severe effect on the stamp market and would drive many out of the hobby. Apparently the USPS has realized this and older stamps will retain postal validity. Secondly, this postal change has great PR benefits for the hobby and the encouragement it will give collecting should be huge. A Superbowl MVP stamp or Oscar best actor stamp should help move non collectors into more awareness of collecting and the publicity should encourage people whose collections are on the shelf to look at them again. Postal Commemorative society people will put out combination FDCs for the new issues using up millions of older affinity type stamps, reinvigorating the discount postage market. All in all, this is the best long term news that our hobby has had in a long time.