The arrival of the GTL tablet’s e-messaging at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation changed the way incarcerated persons communicated. Messages are transmitted not only faster than snail-mail but also, for at least five messages a week, without charge.
One very small group might have lamented this newfangled way of communicating: stamp collectors. At least one incarcerated person had taken up that very hobby: Dennis Paul Decker at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, California.
“I have been incarcerated for almost 20 years and have seen only one other stamp collector in prison,” Decker told the San Quentin News by mail, “That is not to say there aren’t any more.”
Decker’s missive arrived in the old-fashioned way, via snail-mailed ink on 8.5×11 trifold paper enclosed in a Size 10 4⅛×9½ envelope. Decker franked it with a USA 2024 “Forever” stamp depicting a white bird (perhaps a dove) on a red background, the bird carrying a letter with its beak. The postmark to the left of the wavy lines that cancelled Decker’s stamp said “SAN JOSE CA” revealing “7 JUL 2025” as its processing date.
The dictionary definition of philately, Decker’s favored term for his hobby, referred to the study of postage stamps and postal history and to the collection of stamps and other philatelic products.
For Decker, stamp collecting took the place of a coping tool, he explained, and “a healthy way to reduce unhealthy stress since coming to prison.” He has collected stamps for the same 20 years of his incarceration and has traded thousands of them with other collectors.
Decker knew nothing about stamps when he started to accumulate them, he admitted, but now owned an impressive collection with specimens from all over the world. His hobby began once he noticed that his family and his friends sent him letters with stamps he found interesting.
A printout of a Wikipedia article said the hobby began in 1840 after the introduction of “Penny Black,” the first postage stamp, which depicted the profile of Britain’s Queen Victoria. The article said the American Philatelic Society used to have 57,815 members in 1988, which has since declined to 24,421 in 2023.
Decker declared that he wanted to join the American Philatelic Society. Closer to home, he might find the Sacramento Philatelic Society, listed in the article as one of the eight premier stamp societies in the U.S.
“I have no intention of quitting the hobby when I go home,” Decker said. “Whenever I find myself feeling stressed, lonely, or worried, I turn to my stamp collection, which takes me to another place.”