Collecting First Day Covers - What are your thoughts?

Like many of you, I started collecting US FDCs in my teens with a subscription service.  The difference is I remained an active collector, buyer, and seller for many years.  I stopped collecting them when my interest waned about 15 years ago.  My collection currently consists of about 10,000 FDCs, which are contained in albums sorted by cachetmaker.  They certainly take up a lot of space, which is a detriment to collectors.  Nowadays, I only collect worldwide FDCs that pertain to my topical collections.

As to Darrin's darkormex question about prices, the key elements are cachetmaker, stamp topic, and period of issue.  FDCs issued by the common commercial producers during the 1940s and 1950s are plentiful and cheap.  As an example, I used to sell addressed ArtCraft, Artmaster, C. Stephen Anderson, Fleetwood, Ioor, and Cachetcraft - Ken Boll 2-color FDCs at 3 for $1.00.  Unaddressed (never addressed) were 2 for $1.00.  And I was making a decent profit at these prices.  Of course, there are exceptions.  ArtCraft sometimes sold cacheted FDCs with different colored cachets that sell for a premium.  Ken Boll cachets in 4 colors from this period sell for between $2.50 and $6.00 each.  Likewise, any Fleetwood FDCs with a Dorothy Knapp design sell for a premium.  Hand-colored Dorothy Knapp FDCs sell for hundreds of dollars each.

US FDCs from the period before 1940 generally sell for more and the prices are heavily dependent on the cachetmaker.  After 1960, many of the commercial producers ceased operations as the cachet artists passed on and collector interest diminished. The primary commercial producers - ArtCraft, Artmaster, and Fleetwood (Unicover) - continued on, but reduced the number of cacheted envelopes based on sales.  Reductions in the number of cacheted envelopes produced continued decade by decade and the prices correspondingly rose.  Today, it can be difficult to find FDCs from these producers for certain stamps issued during the late 1990s and early 2000s, so these FDCs command a premium.  Additionally, FDCs for popular stamp issues, like the 1968 Walt Disney stamp and any baseball-themed stamp, tend to sell for higher prices, regardless of the cachetmaker.  During this same period, hand-painted and hand-colored FDCs became more popular.  These are the types of FDCs most sought after by collectors today.

As collector interest in FDCs has generally decreased, prices have fallen, even for desirable FDCs.  I have a number of scarce FDCs that would undoubtedly still command decent prices, but the bulk of my collection would likely sell for about what I paid for them.  That being said, the FDC market also tends to be cyclical, so there may be an uptick in the future.