It’s time continue the interview series with stamp collectors online. This time I’ll be discussing with Mats Blückert – the man behind excellent Romaniastamps.com website.

Q:  Could you please tell me something about yourself

I am 53 years, married, two daughters, and I live in a house north of Stockholm (Sweden).

In my youth I had a theatre group; today I work with Stockholm’s largest youth theatre and also as a developer of youth clubs (finding trends). I listen to lots of music; see a lot of theatre, dance & opera.

Generally, I have a good life…

Q: What areas/countries/topicals do you collect (besides Romania)? Is there a specific reason for your choices?

I have OK collections of Romania, in particular the “Ear of Wheat” issues (Romania’s King Carol I stamps between 1893 – 1908) and some essays & revenues.

I have tried collecting different areas in the past… What attracts me is to go through a lot of material, and sort them by types, variations, cancellations etc. Refining material to make something uninteresting once again interesting… I used to collect East Europe, Germany (especially the Allied Zone), but I found that in German philately most issues were thoroughly studied. Then I stumbled upon Romania and found that there were lots of different interesting areas to explore with interesting history.

Q: Do you collect for personal fun, or to compete (in exhibitions) – or both?

I collect for personal fun only.

I do not participate in exhibitions or clubs and such – my “philatelic life” is with the contacts I get through working with romaniastamps.com.

I get a lot of nice response to my work, but when I try to communicate with postal authorities or stamp exhibitions there is little response. I hope that philately will develop to think “outside the exhibition frame”, and find ways to incorporate Internet and the Wikipedia way of work into the traditional ways of philately.

Q: How did you start the Romaniastamps.com?

I have been interested in computers in general and the Internet; what we do online and what it does to us. I know HTML by heart, but I´m a bit old for PHP (programming language) and stuff like that.

About the history of romanianstamps.com… I got a copy of the “Romanian Specialized catalogue 1974″ in 1999 and was amazed by the variety -especially for the “Ear of Wheat issue”. Since this information was only available in a 25 year old catalogue in Romanian, I decided to put some of that information on the Internet (on a free web space).

I was then contacted by a collector who wondered if I was interested in scans of his collection. Thus I was introduced to Romanian essays, and I received a copy of the standard book on that subject – issued in French 1945 in Portugal. Then I found an old book about forgeries in German, a couple of rare books in Romanian and so on. All the time, in all areas, new knowledge was added through contributions from a lot of different collectors. At one point I bought a domain name and decent hosting solution with “unlimited space” – romanianstamps.com was born.

At the moment I work with some prestamped postcards using Michel as a basis. And all the time new, uncatalogued items pop up. This fascinates me.

Q: Has the internet changed the way you collect and communicate with other stamp collectors?

I have not yet found another Swedish Romania collector (maybe I haven’t searched hard enough…). But through Romaniastamps.com, I have ongoing discussions where a lot of people contribute to make something greater than individual knowledge. Most people realize that the only way to make more people interested in our respective small areas of interest is to spread and share knowledge in easy-to-use ways.

But… I collect less, and the website has become my main hobby project. And I can afford collecting images of the first Romanian issue

Q:Do you believe people will still collect stamps in future, like year 2050? Or is stamp collecting becoming a dead hobby? Feel free to say anything about the future of stamp collecting.

The existing material will not disapear. Probably the mainstream of philately will dwindle, but the branches (specialized areas) will continue to be interesting – and new angles of interest will be found. Actually, a lot of modern material will become very rare since fewer people post letters, and save the ones they receive.

I think the future of philately is in the online community Wikipedia-like work – a group of people spread around the world, contributing to a common knowledge base on a specific topic.

Q: What stamp collecting websites, communities or forums would you recommend for readers of this interview (besides your site)?

Those I find and like, I post on Romaniastamps.com.

A great thank you to Romaniastamp.com’s Mr. Mats Blückert for this interview.

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