A Look Back at 1979: Why Collect Stamps?
In January 1979, BBC Two broadcast the first episode of In the Post, a ten-part series dedicated entirely to the world of stamp collecting. Introduced by Gwyn Richards and Jill Cochrane, the programme set out to answer a deceptively simple question: why collect stamps?
The BBC recently uploaded a clip from that first episode to their archive YouTube channel, and it makes for wonderfully nostalgic viewing, not just for the glimpse it offers into the collections featured, but for the snapshot it provides of a hobby at a very different moment in its history.
The episode brings together three collectors, each with their own distinctive approach to philately. Dr Jean Alexander, one of the few women prominent in the stamp world at the time, describes how she was born into the hobby, given her first album at the age of five and taken along to stamp meetings on Saturday afternoons by her father. Her collecting interests ranged from the charmingly thematic, she began by collecting waterfalls on stamps, to the deeply scholarly. Her study of the 1929 Postal Union Congress issue, an area she had largely to herself when she started, is a fine example of how a collector can carve out a niche and make it entirely their own.
Dr Douglas Latto, an obstetrician and self-confessed “practical joker”, collected British stamps with a passion that clearly ran deep. His tale of finding a penny black tied to a cover with a red Maltese cross and cancelled at Lombard Street on 6th May 1840, the very first day of issue, is the sort of story that makes any collector's heart beat a little faster. His interest in proof sheets led him to write five articles on the subject, and his collection included items of genuine historical significance, not least a near-complete sheet of 1900 stamps with only two missing, both of which he owned, reportedly beating even the Royal Collection to those particular pieces.
Then there was Kenneth Griffith, the actor and documentary maker, whose collecting took a rather different form. He collected British military postal history, specifically covers sent by soldiers during Britain's many wars, with a particular focus on the Anglo-Boer War. His interest began not in a stamp shop or at an auction, but at the graves of British soldiers in Ladysmith, Natal, and it led him to make six documentary films about the conflict. His collecting was inseparable from his wider passion for history, and his description of a siege cover from Ladysmith, with its pen inscription reading "no stamps," is a reminder that postal history can bring you remarkably close to the human stories behind the mail.
What comes across most strongly from the programme is the sheer variety of reasons people had for collecting. The vox pop interviews at the British Philatelic Exhibition capture this beautifully. One collector speaks of the excitement of finding documents in official archives that tie up with other discoveries. Another describes stamps as mementos of places, even places they have never visited. A third simply says there is "a heck of a lot of interest in those stupid little bits of paper." Several mention the social side of the hobby, the clubs, the exhibitions, the chance to meet like-minded people.
The programme also visits a stamp shop in Bath, run by Mr and Mrs Swindells, where Audrey Swindells offers advice to new collectors. Her approach is refreshingly practical and encouraging. Children, she suggests, should start with packets of stamps because they enjoy quantity and want to fill an album, and thematic collecting, then a relatively new and increasingly accepted approach, is a fine way to get young people interested. "So what?" she says of thematic collecting. "As long as it starts them off, as long as it gets them interested." It is advice that holds just as true today.
Watching the programme in 2026, it is striking how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. The fundamentals of what makes collecting enjoyable, the thrill of the hunt, the satisfaction of research, the pleasure of handling something with history behind it, are as true now as they were in 1979. But the world around the hobby has shifted considerably.
The most obvious change is in how stamps are bought and sold. In 1979, public auctions held in physical rooms were the norm, and visiting your local stamp shop was a regular part of the collector's routine. Many of those local shops have since closed, and the auction world has moved increasingly online. Here at Tony Lester Auctions, we held public auctions for 45 years before making the move to online sales through Easy Live Auction, a change that has allowed collectors from all over the world to participate in our sales from the comfort of their own homes. It has been, as we have found, a big hit with our customers.
The way collectors research and learn about their stamps has changed too. In the programme, Jill Cochrane holds up a Stanley Gibbons world catalogue as "the collector's bible," and while catalogues remain an important reference, today's collectors also have access to a vast amount of information online, from specialist forums and society websites to digitised archives and academic papers. The kind of research that Dr Alexander undertook into the 1929 Postal Union Congress issue, which she describes as having "a clear field" before her, would today be both easier in some respects and harder in others, easier because of the wealth of information now available, but harder because so many more people can access it.
The question of investment, which the programme touches on with some caution, has also evolved. Dr Latto draws a clear distinction between collectors, who "just can't help making money" because their knowledge gives them an edge, and speculators, who buy purely for profit and may or may not do well. That distinction remains relevant. Stamps can certainly appreciate in value, but as we often advise our clients, the real value of a collection lies in the knowledge, care and enthusiasm that has gone into building it. Collections formed with genuine passion and expertise tend to do better at auction than those assembled purely as investments.
One area where things have perhaps not changed as much as we might hope is in the diversity of the hobby's participants. Dr Alexander was introduced in 1979 as "one of the few women prominent in the stamp world," and while the hobby has become somewhat more inclusive since then, it is fair to say that philately still has some way to go in attracting a broader range of collectors. The programme's emphasis on the social and intellectual pleasures of collecting, rather than just the financial aspects, feels like exactly the right message to encourage new people into the hobby.
It is also worth noting how the programme treats the question that we hear so often at Tony Lester Auctions: is my collection worth anything? Even in 1979, the presenters were gently managing expectations. The penny black that Dr Latto bought in Selfridges cost him £3, a price that seems almost unbelievable today, but the programme makes clear that not every old stamp is valuable and that condition, rarity and provenance matter far more than age alone. These are points we make regularly on our own frequently asked questions page, and they were evidently just as relevant nearly fifty years ago.
Perhaps the most endearing aspect of the programme is the evident joy that each of the collectors takes in their hobby. Whether it is Dr Alexander's quiet satisfaction in identifying a plate variety from a tiny break in a jubilee line, Dr Latto's delight in his first-day penny black, or Kenneth Griffith's passionate engagement with the human stories behind his Boer War covers, what comes through is that these are people for whom collecting is not just a pastime but a genuine source of meaning and pleasure. That, more than anything, is what has not changed since 1979, and what we hope will continue to draw people to stamp collecting for many years to come.
The full clip is well worth a watch and is embedded at the top of this page. It is a lovely piece of television from a time when the BBC could devote an entire ten-part series to the subject of philately, and it serves as a reminder that behind every stamp collection, there is a story worth telling.
