Stamp time (or why Philosateleia doesn’t have a trading section)

If you followed Philosateleia in its earlier days, you may remember the site at one time had a trading section. It was a place where I listed duplicate stamps that I had available for trade, and anyone who wanted could request to exchange material with me.

A recent posting in another blog reminded me of that trading section—and of why I ultimately discontinued it.

Daniel Ptashny’s March 3 post was innocent enough. “I was considering having a section on Philavilla which would allow you to trade stamps with me,” Daniel wrote. “Would you be interested in a trading section? How would you want to trade with me?” It got me thinking about how I used to do trades, and why I quit doing them that way.

The biggest factor was time. It took time to list what I had available, time to pull the stamps that potential traders indicated they wanted, and time to update my aforementioned list so it accurately reflected what was left. It got to the point where it felt like all I was doing with my stamps or my website was trading, and I wanted to be able to enjoy my collection and write new content!

I still do some trades from time to time, but it’s on a much smaller scale than it used to be—and, quite frankly, it’s a lot more enjoyable than it was when I was trying to maintain a listing of my “stock.”

Published 2015-03-05