Codes for scanning or an e-mail: Perhaps the good old postage stamps will be obsolete in the not too distant future.
Georg Stöckl from Hausham explains what has fascinated collectors like him for decades.
Hausham
- The postage stamp is going digital: Provided with a scannable matrix, the sending route of letters can in future be traced via the Post app.
The innovation has met with moderate interest from collectors in the district, but this does not detract from their love of philately.
It is stuck to the top right of every letter: for some it is just a franking, for others the images of landscapes, buildings and great personalities are much more: for philatelists that is, stamp collectors like Georg Stöckl from Hausham, the little pictures have been two square centimeters for generations Longing, a small window to the big world.
That is still the case today - even if the stamp makers are breaking new ground.
At the beginning of February, Swiss Post launched a new postage stamp that is not only called “digital change” but also embodies it: the stamp has a matrix that can be scanned with a mobile phone.
The Post app can then be used to track when the sent letter leaves the post office and when it has arrived in the target region.
Information on the images on the stamps can also be viewed in the app.
Smartphone and pen are enough: Deutsche Post introduces new franking for letters and postcards
Georg Stöckl from Hausham has been collecting stamps since his youth
However, this novelty does not spark any enthusiasm among collectors: “Well, then the new stamp will appear”, says Georg Stöckl, who has been first and second chairman of the Association of Postage Stamp Friends Bad Tölz, Hausham, Holzkirchen for almost 25 years.
“And if you think you have to add that pixel up there, then you should do that.
But I don't believe that we philatelists are more interested in that now. "
The old collectors do not need what might be suitable to arouse new interest.
The postage stamp friends have been around since 1949. “At first it was a loose story,” says the householder.
But when collectors from Bad Tölz and Holzkirchen came more and more regularly to the meetings in Hausham and vice versa, it was decided to merge the circles and found a joint association.
That was in 1975. At its peak, the club had 90 members.
Today there are still 70 collectors who follow the path of the postage stamp, just as the Post app has recently been doing.
In normal times, the members of the association meet once a month to swap new stamps over a beer and to discuss the latest developments in philately.
But because of the pandemic, no club meetings can currently take place, otherwise the meetings take place in different taverns in the district: in Tölzer Binderbräu, in Haushamer Glück Auf and in Landgasthof Altwirt in Großhartpennning.
Every stamp collector has his niche
"Each of us has his or her collecting niche," says Stöckl.
“One person collects aircraft motifs, the other trains and again another plants.” Together, the stamp lovers support each other in the goal of completing the respective collections.
Stöckl himself collects motifs from Holzkirch.
For him, the best thing about philately, the stamp customer, is the hidden general knowledge that the stamps can convey: “If you then find out who or what the stamps depict, you come across really interesting facts and personalities.
That makes it a very nice hobby. "
"If you couldn't play football, you just collected stamps"
Digital change - for some, this is also the reason why young people's interest in philately has waned.
When Stöckl started collecting, in the early 1950s, the range of leisure activities was even thinner than the few brands that are still missing from his collection today.
“There was no television.
And if you couldn't play soccer, then you just collected stamps, ”Stöckl remembers.
"Back then we were seven to eight boys who started collecting together."
Today young people are interested in other things.
It's a shame anyway.
"Every stamp collector wants a generation after him to continue collecting." For Stöckl, the fascination for the stamp does not end, for him the motifs remain his small windows into the big world of knowledge.
Moritz Hackl
