I still collect. Started around 5 and never really stopped.
It's like many of the older hobbies, the really good items are bringing good prices. While the very common are not. A typical price to pay for a collection or accumulation that has some fairly nice things is around 10% of the catalog value of the nicer items.
Most US stamps from the 30s on are as has been pointed out, used as discount postage. Bought that way, maybe 80% of the face value, sometimes less.
Even some from earlier get used that way by stamp collectors. If a stamp catalogs 50 cents or a dollar but has major flaws, it won't sell at all.
Most can be bought for 50% of catalog value.
The fun and the interesting stuff you can learn about are the key, and even some big ticket items don't make good investments.
Generating interest with younger people without the whole "you can find rare expensive stuff with no real effort" angle is hard.
That being said, I do find some pretty good deals, and some really good deals by knowing specialized info, that most dealers can't spend the time to be bothered with.
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