Have you ever wondered how postcards get to you? I mean, we all know how to send them and we know it's our postman who delivers them - but what about the rest?
Wonder no more - we have found a great video that shows how the magic happens between the sender and the receiver. It documents a sample delivery through the UK Royal Mail but the process worldwide doesn't differ that much. Enjoy!
Quite impressive, isn't it?
If you follow the news, you probably have heard about the Icelandic volcano that recently caused a major disruption on Europe's air traffic. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano (don't worry, we don't know how to properly pronounce that either) caused huge delays on passengers hoping to fly on the days after its eruption on April 14th.
But why is this relevant here? Because not only passengers got grounded - cargo flights too, and this obviously included mail delivery services; any mail arriving or leaving the affected parts of Europe got delayed. But how much did this really affect the postal services? We couldn't find any hard data on it, so we decided to measure it ourselves and share it with you.
Below you can see a graph of number of Postcrossing postcards received per week of 2010.
It's easy to spot when the Eyjafjallajökull did its thing, isn't it? We estimate a 26% hiccup on mail delivery because of the volcano. Quite amazing how powerful nature can be.
However, the good news is: mail delivery is back again to its normal speed, judging by last week's numbers. It's quite possible that postcards traveling to more far away places might still be affected by this, but the worse part seems to be over, so keep posting! :)
A small town in Oregon (U.S.A.) is asking for postcards from all over the world. In return, they will send back their recently created postcards about their town. What else could we ask?
Here are the details:
I just wanted to invite all Postcrossers to contribute a postcard to an upcoming event:
Celebrating the Art of the Postcard
Help the Cornelius Post Office celebrate the joy of small works of art and personal communication. Cornelius is a small town in Western Oregon, known for hazelnuts, blueberries and vineyards. Here at the local post office we noticed that for visitors there was no way of sending a local postcard to share the cool things about this unique little town. We’re working on that! Share your postcard with us and get one of the ones we are producing!
Exhibition: Begins January 11, 2010 in the lobby of the Cornelius, OR Post Office.
Make sure to include your return address to receive one of our postcards in return and to be included in the list of participants.
Send your postcards to:
Postmaster
1639 Baseline Street
Cornelius, OR 97113
USA
Follow us at: http://postcardmailart.blogspot.com/
Have you sent yours?
Postcards tell us stories. About their journey, their sender, their origin. Their photo can tell a lot about the place where they came from and the stamps can share some history about the country too. But they still hold potential to tell much more. Thinking of this, Anna and Tess Knoebel have started Abe's Penny - a micro-magazine in postcard format.
Each monthly issue of Abe's Penny has 4 postcards that together form an artistic narrative prepared by a photographer and writer. The themes are random and unexpected and each issue has new artists that prepare the photo for the postcard and the accompanying text.
All postcards are mailed to its subscribers at the rate of one per week and they accept subscribers from anywhere in the world.
If you would like to subscribe to Abe's Penny micro-magazine or if you are just curious about it, be sure to check their website and their archive for the previous issues. Let us know what you think!
On the remote country of Tonga in the South Pacific, there's a very special island. It's name is Niuafo'ou, but it's most commonly known as Tin Can Island for the way mail was delivered and sent for many years.
The concept of Tin Can Mail started in 1882 in this island when William Travers, a plantation manager, found himself without a way to receive mail from the rest of the world. The island had no harbour and was very steep so ships wouldn't go there. So he came up with the idea that mail could be delivered inside of the ships biscuit tin cans that would be thrown overboard when they were passing by! He proposed this to the Tongan postal authorities and soon mail started to be delivered this way. But, don't think this was an easy feat! With strong sea currents and distances of over a mile, this meant that to retrieve mail they could have to swim up to 6 hours!
Eventually the Tin Can Mail became extremely popular and also a tradition and soon ships started to come with passengers just to watch this incredible way of mail delivery. In 1928, Walter George Quensell produced rubber stamps saying "TIN CAN MAIL" that started being applied to all outgoing letters - over one million and a half, Quensell claimed.
This method of mail delivered continued for over 100 years and it only ended in 1983 when a small airport was built in the island. Nonetheless, the Tin Can Mail history will live forever with special Niuafo'ou stamps - created by the Tonga postal services -, and on the hands of many collectors who are lucky enough to have a letter with the "TIN CAN MAIL" stamp.
Oh, and if you want to learn more about Tin Can Mail, be sure to check this page where you can find a lot more details about it.
