Tasting Bankruptcy: Overcoming Stamp Addiction

Currently, there are 30 stamp albums. Some of them aren't actually stamps, but rather coins, shells, charms, treasures, etc. But alas, they are all categorized as 'stamps'. The reasoning behind this will forever remain a mystery, but theorists surmise that it's a Lawyerbot thing. Speaking of Lawyerbot, *squeeeeeee!* USUKIS! >3 Anyway, Twenty-five stamps are in each of these albums, but some don't have all of their stamps released yet. Keeping this in mind, there are over 600 stamps that can be found as of right now.

Now that we know how many stamps that need to be collected, you might be thinking, "What could possibly be so dangerous about collecting stamps besides the quantity of them?" Well, I'm glad you time traveled and telepathically asked before knowing this existed. The number one reason why you shouldn't collect stamps is that you have to LICK-EVERY-SINGLE-ONE of them to put into your album. How utterly disgusting is that? What's worse is that it could even cause your pet to get sick with Neogitus or possibly even the dreaded Floppy Tongue. And keep those pesky Grarrls away, they might just gobble them up instead! NOM!

***Please consult your local Neopian Doctor if you, your loved one, or someone you know has been affected by Neogitus or Floppy Tongue due to the licking and/or ingestion of stamps.

This brings me to reason number two. As mentioned above, some stamps aren't actually 'stamps' but are coins, shells, or charms. Since there is no way to stick these miscellaneous items securely in your 'stamp' album, you could actually end up losing one of your precious collectables and not be able to recover it! This could be disastrous if you spent a lot of money to obtain it, especially if it were an extremely rare one to find. This leads us to our third reason of why these menacing little stamps are so detrimental to our way of Neolife.

Reason number three ties into the money issue because of those extremely rare stamps. Most Neopians have no hope of completing a few of the original stamp albums because of the initial Great Stamp Giveaway about 10 years ago where TNT released r101 stamps that are now virtually non-existent. Additionally, there are other stamps that were given away very early on for winning such contests as Better Than You or The Lenny Conundrum; and dr_sloth (All Hail Sloth!) has been generous enough to auction a few of them off (for hefty prices I might add) to get them back into circulation. Not to mention the r180 retired stamps that are also quite expensive. There's just absolutely no hope of obtaining any of these rare stamps unless you are a millionaire/billionaire or were around for these events and were smart enough to hang on to them. If you remember reason two, even if you managed to collect them, they could fall out of your album when you aren't looking! NOOO!

Reason number four is related to reason number three, in that with the high cost of these dreadful tasting stamps, it's even worse for albums that have an avatar tied to them. It's now gotten so bad that Neopians have been anticipating that TNT will release more stamp avatars in the future for the other stamp albums that don't currently have an avatar associated with them, and prices have inflated to where it's just out of control! Even those r80 stamps in albums without an avatar will cost around 30,000 NP and possibly even 60,000 NP – 99,999 NP in shops for the higher r89 stamps. These prices are even higher when stamps are newly released. You may be thinking that you could simply buy these stamps at the Neopian Post Office, but you might not actually see anything restock there, since with these inflated prices everybody wants to make a profit off of them. This shop has become such a high traffic area that sometimes it's almost harder to restock in here than in that elusive Magic Shop!

Reason number five pertains to you, avatar collectors. I know you've turned into stamp collectors over the years, and perhaps you missed my original article about the dangers of collecting avatars. Do not fear! The first step is to admit you have a problem. I'm here to help you do that. Please refer back to my original article, and continue on with this one.

Reason number six yields profit, profit, profit! Many collectors think that once they have a particular stamp and have reason to believe that it will inflate later causes them to hoard this item in hopes of making a huge profit later on. This obsessive thinking can lead to becoming extremely poor, especially from already having collected rare stamps in the past. It could backfire if the particular item they hoarded actually went down in price because of a random daily giveaway that would render it worthless.

Reason number seven is of course those dangerous sharp stamp edges. Just like with those sharp edged avatars, these spiky stamps could give you deadly paper cuts, and after handling and licking so many, well... just refer back to that number one reason we talked about earlier. Believe me, it is not fun!

Reason number eight happens to affect the environment and reason number nine deals with the Petpet Protection League (PPL), believe it or not. This is because the sheer number of lower rarity stamps has gotten completely out of control. Neopians everywhere are discarding them left and right because of their worthless value. Pretty soon we will see our poor little Meepits covered in these sticky little menaces, and their habitats will become endangered. How will we feed them juice then? We must not anger these delicate creatures, for everyone must know what will happen as a result of such a crime. Please feel free to read the book How to Serve Meepits for additional details.

This brings us to our final tenth reason for why Stamp Collecting is a dangerous hobby to have. If there were such a World where everything was made out of... oh wait, nevermind. The tenth reason has been cancelled due to lack of interest by Lawyerbot. Apparently, he also declared that there needs to be a stamp album dedicated to him and his love for Usukis now that he has his own avatar.

So there you have it, stamp collectors. I hope you have come to realize how much of a detriment this could be to your Neolife. You will be sick, poor, obsessive, and disappointed. All of these negate what you should be striving for – health, wealth, happiness, and a clean safe environment.

***Disclaimer: As with my previous article about the dangers of avatar collecting, this article was written purely for amusement purposes only. Many details I've included throughout this article are actually false about stamp collecting. For instance, it's not true that you have to lick stamps, there's even a disclaimer about that on the main stamp album page! How about that? *shifty eyes* Once a stamp is placed in its album it will permanently stay there, so no worries about that either! Beware the other reasons against stamp collecting, however. Hope you enjoyed this article! :-)