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Blog > A once-in-a-century postcard!

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Some months ago, Albrecht (aka hulottati, from Germany) found a great card on an auction, and brought to our attention. We’ve been itching to share it with you ever since… but we had to wait patiently for today. Why? Check it out!

121212

It’s from 1912 – more precisely, 12th December 1912, and therefore is exactly 100 years old! It reads:

“If you want to write such a card again, you’ll have to wait 100 years!”

How cool is that? Intriguing and interesting! And who knew that people back then were as fascinated with special dates as we are now? Or that, 100 years on, it would be seen on a website about postcards?

Are you going to send a special card today to celebrate this unusual date? You should – who knows you might read it in 100 years! :)

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39 comments so far

grauli, Germany

Not specails cards, but I waited until today to write cards - to send as much as possible with this 12-12-2012-date-stamp.

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moonlessnite, Canada

I will try...and i m pleased that the card survived 100 years.

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KaiKitten, United States of America

How wonderful to have such a special card! When my son was born (in 1994) I went to the post office and got one of each US stamp minted in 1994. I wonder what his grandchildren will do with the stamps in 2094.

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kelpie, Russia

It's great! I sent my post today also at 12 o'clock.

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okmi, Latvia

Thanks for this news!!

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Iefonnuh, Netherlands

That's a great postcard. Nice you shared this with all the postcrossers!!

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Geminiscp, Portugal

WOW, amazing!!!!! I have some cards written to be sent today, I hope they will be alive too in 100 years! :D

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carolinechia, Malaysia

wooww! thats so amazing:) so here we are today:) 12.12.12. i just come back from the post office for a special POstmark!

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jjmedusa, United States of America

Yes, I am participating in the 12-12-12 postcard swap organized on the forum & will be sending out postcards shortly!

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IvanWong, Hong Kong

cool!

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WhiteSpirit, Netherlands

Oh wow that's great. Yess I will send some cards and presents out on 12-12-12.
Ánd I just gave a present to a stranger on 12-12-2012 and on my blog to two strangers @12.12 pm.

http://365dagencreatief.blogspot.nl/2012/12/mijn-kadootjes-ter-ere-van-12-12-om.html

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Truce, Netherlands

Wonderful card!

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Vitor_Luiz, Brazil

Great Friend...always surprising us...you are fantastic!!!

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sandyisa312, Germany

It's a really wonderful card! Thank you for sharing with us.

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PilotOne, Portugal

Thanks for sharing a so great card! Today I've already written some cards but not special ones, but obviously 12.12.12 will be on their postmarks!

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lncrou7, United States of America

I have just requested 12 addresses!

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marica_t, United States of America

Ahhh, I wish I had time now to write some cards and get a 12-12-12 postmark, but I don't :(

That postcard is so interesting and fun! :) Thank you for sharing it! :)

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Lagmar, Ukraine

Wow! :) Amazing!

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Schulze, Germany

I send 2 cards today and one for me... Hope the postmarks will be nice. Last year I sent at 11-11-11 but the postmarks were so ugly... At one card were no mark.
By the way: The background of the homepage is very nice!!! Thanks!

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honeybee, Austria

This card is wonderful. I also sent a pack of cards today. The lady at the post office was so kind to cancel it very carefully, so the date is seen very well. I watched her until she was finished with all my cards ;)

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idus, Germany

I also sent out several postcards today, also with "Merry christmas" wishes handwritten on them.

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AnneMarrit, Netherlands

I sent out 14 postcards today, 12-12-’12 at 12:12:12 pm exact! That makes it 6 x 12 How nice!
12/12/’12 12:12:12 and hopefully the date will show on the stamp as well! That will make it 13 x 12.
Hopefully people will appreciate it.

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nugget, United States of America

Wow! That's an amazing postcard! Thanks for sharing with us.

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Luziaceleste, Brazil

Great post! We really cannot foreseen future in its total deepness of significance!

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dulcey, United States of America

great! I sent out a few cards today too!

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AnneMarrit, Netherlands

The next repetitive date will be 01/01/01 (2101). Over 88 year? Am I right? I won't be alive, but maybe my postcards sent today 12/12/12 will have survived the time.....

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pandoraspocks, United States of America

this is really cool! as a side note, will there be an update about the 2 millionth postcard sent from the US?

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chrissybaby, Ireland

This special date was in the news this morning on my way to work. I had sent some cards today too, but due to my long working hours I put them only into the postbox this morning - I had some special cancellation on 11.11.11.

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Lord5005, United States of America

I work for the USPS and designed a special cancellation for 12-12-12 that is available for 30 days by mail in request. You can find the information on the usps.com website. Search for postal bulletin 22351 (the date is the Nov 29th issue) and the info is on page 41. I am requesting my addresses today so that they all can have the special cancellation on them

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Lord5005, United States of America

Hey it is only 12/12/12 here in Pennsylvania and my post and requested addresses show as the 13th already :(

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Heartful, Germany

Great story, thanks to Ana and Albrecht for sharing with us :-) Inspired by it, I also send some cards to friends just to surprise them.
Maybe in 100 years, one of our cards will be in a museum..maybe in the Museum of Post and Telecommunications (http://www.museumsstiftung.de/stiftung/sammlungen/sammlungskonzept.html). What about proposing this special card to the museum in Frankfurt? or there is even a similar one in Berlin.
Maybe such museums would really love to hear about Postcrossing, it´s a part of post history, what do you think?
Should we (as users) push this story and make some publicity for Postcrossing by contacting them all over the world?
Just an idea
Greetings, Heartful

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texasdreamer, United States of America

Very neat! It is too late in the evening for me to get a 12/12/12 postmark but I am going to write some cards and at least be able to date them 12/12/12! I bet the person that sent or bought that postcard never dreamed it would end up on here! :)

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sabescan, Malaysia

An intriguing story

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kugusch, Germany

That card was on the cover of the regional newspaper yesterday!!!!
I already did something like this before: On 09-09-09 I sent a card to 9 people. On each card 9 stamps made up the postage: https://picasaweb.google.com/Kugusch/Maxicards#5742896833614289762
Yesterday I hand drew 4 cards with the special date to mail. One I sent to myself and three more to forum friends. I would have liked to do more,but I'm currently working outside at -5Degrees, so 4 is all I could do...

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Stasele, Netherlands

User Sreisaat and I agreed to send out a postcard to each other on 12-12-12. The coolest thing about it... we might actually meet before we receive each other's cards!

And I am looking forward to more nice dates. Even though there won't be a 13-13-13, I fully recognize the beauty of dates such as 13-1-13 and 11-12-13, to name but a few in the coming year.
Happy New Year to all Postcrossers, and thanks a lot for this and other blog entries!

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JemmaJ, United Kingdom

Such an interesting card; I would ahve loved to have found it! Gotta love auction websites!

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Vikman, United States of America

Such a cool postcard!

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Robin67, Austria

Honeybee and Cheryll prompted me to do an exchange of cards sent on 12.12.2012, so I decided to write all of the remaining Christmas cards to postcrossers, pen pals and friends and by coincidence I mailed 12 cards. The lady at the post office had her back to me when she postmarked the cards, but I hope all went well.

Thank you honeybee for your card from tthe 12.12.12, which arrived on the 13th. :-)

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indianfriendszone, India

awesome...

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