this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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Full title: This tiny scrap of magenta paper is the rarest postage stamp in the world. Originally printed in 1856 during emergency paper shortage, it is so valuable that by weight it is worth more than diamonds or platinum.

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[–] Nouvellalia@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes... but certainly not by the time it was being collected. Stamp collectors are part of the "collecting-useless-things" people, the ones we lost two generations of.

It was admittedly a tongue-in-cheek statement. Stamp collecting barely holds any "meaning" outside of the hobbyist's circle, but it's innocent enough and does preserve a bit of scarce historical ephemera. Even that is lost though when you're not collecting, but rather playing the ARG a plastic factory or pixel factory has dopamine-looped you into strictly for profit.

Most importantly though how many people who could have been scientists, obsessively documenting the minutia of their chosen focus, have we lost to these companies?