One Percent

Philately is a far more democratic hobby than most. In America today, the top 1% of people own about 40% of societal assets. Such a pyramided wealth schema is probably true of many of the more serious collector hobbies as well. Outside of museums, the top 1% probably owns nearly all the Old Master paintings or Picassos. And all the fine antique collectible jewelry. That is not a problem in those fields because there are so few works available and each work is unique so that a collector could own more than one. But if philately were a hobby where the one percent controlled such a high percentage of the assets of the hobby, our hobby would be in sad shape indeed. There are perhaps 250,000 serious stamp collectors today in the US ("serious" defined loosely as collecting more than just new postage stamps as they are issued and having a long term interest in matters philatelic). Think what such a control of philatelic wealth in the one percent would mean. There are 50,000  Zepp sets. If the 2500 "1%" collectors (1% of 250,000 collectors) owned 20,000 Zepp sets (40% of 50,000 zepp sets) that would be ten sets per collector. Would there be a ready market for these stamps at anything like the current price? Concentration of philatelic wealth in so few hands would depress demand significantly as the collectors at the top would need nothing, have ten of everything and only buy items perceived to be cheap. Philatelic demand would be significantly depressed. Fortunately for the financial health of our hobby the kind of wealth concentration that is hindering America's recovery is not at play in our hobby.