Hobby of Kings

A collector of and authority on stamps is a philatelist, not philatist, which sounds like something completely else, something that has nothing to do with the sedate and venerable hobby of stamp collecting, also known as "the hobby of kings."

If I had known this, I would never, ever have told the patron, an elderly gentleman wearing a musty old tweed jacket, "Stamp collecting and pricing guides are on the 2nd floor! That's where you'll find your fellow phil-LAY-tists," causing his beetly eyebrows to shoot up.

Those people do exist in the library, but on other floors, usually deep in the stacks.