Stamp collecting has been a hobby for many over the last century, but have collectors declined due to electronic mail?

Over time, stamps have gained in value due to their rarity and in many cases, their beauty. The artwork that has gone into some of the designs on some countries stamps is nothing short of genuine artwork.

Stamps are also historical records of momentous events in a country's history. World events are recorded for all time in the stamps produced by each country. Apart from a historical record, they are also a good barometer of a countries economic conditions at the time of printing. When stamps were first invented in Britain to pay for postage, they cost around a halfpenny. Which back in those days was a lot of money. Postage stamps were not readily available to everyone because not everyone in those days could read or write and many only earned a few pound a year. So a halfpenny, was not affordable for everyone.

Today few people use 'snail mail' as it is now called because most people are on the internet and use email which is electronic mail. Once you have an internet connection email is available to everyone to use and it is included as part of your internet service providers package. Indeed, you can't not have one because without one usually attached to your ISP, they simply won't connect you.

Emails are incredibly fast and fly around the world in nano seconds. Snail mail still takes days to get from one place to another and in some countries, their snail mail is so slow it can take a week or more. Canada has particularly slow mail and they don't even deliver to your house there but rather to a group of mail boxes and you have to go for sometimes quite a long walk to pick up your mail.

This is really not very pleasant when the temperature drops to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Apart from this great inconvenience, posted mail there is terribly slow and if you send anything overseas, be sure you allow at least 14 days for it to arrive.

In Australia, mail is delivered to your letter box at your home address. This is a wonderful convenience and I hope it never changes. Parcel mail is either home delivered or you get a polite message in your mail box to let you know that a parcel is waiting for you to pick it up at your local post office. Australia Post has a lot to be proud of because they do a remarkably good job. Interstate mail is fast around Australia and from East to West takes about 2 days. International mail is also fast to some countries but the delivery of it is dependent on the mail service of the designated country.

But if you are a stamp collector, you had best hope for a lot of 'snail mail' from friends or go and buy the newly minted packs direct from the Post Office because that may be the best way of adding to your stamp collection these days.

The beauty of postage stamps conveying important message today has given way to the speediest email delivery method. It is called progress but no one has ever said progress was always beautiful.