Remember last year, when we wrote about Keri Smith’s new postcard book?
The promotional video Keri did highlighted one postcard in particular: a postcard that was made to be sent back and forth between friends! It sounded like a great idea, and I was itching to give it a try… And just then, PostMuse tweeted this serendipitous message:
Author of this postcard book suggests mailing same postcard back & forth. Can that really work? http://t.co/ErfHujhyou
— PostMuse (@PostMuse) October 22, 2013I suggested we give it a go, to see if it worked, and she accepted. YAY! I promptly mailed her my card:
Over the course of several months, we sent the same postcard between Berlin and Pittsburgh. With time, it became a sort of tiny journal, telling its story not only on the messages we wrote, but also in its stamps, postal markings, nicks and scratches. It even visited Ex Postal Facto and Postcrossing’s stamp launch in Guernsey!
And now, almost a year later, we’ve finally ran out of space. Here’s how it looks:
So, yes, it worked, and it turned out to be a pretty cool postal experiment too — one I can definitely recommend! :)
49 comments so far
Very neat! I want to try this!
Wow. I wonder how many times the card went across the sea.
This is wonderful! Thank you for sharing this brilliant idea.
quite funny! are the stamps put next to eachother or on eachother? Is it good to use a bigger card? I want to try this as well!
looks good! lovly postcard book by the way :-)
happy postcrossing!
@pucky we usually ended up covering each other's postage each time, but on the card's last trip back to Germany, I made sure to leave the Guernsey stamp uncovered. It was so much fun to find this card back in my mailbox through the months. Always a cause for celebration in my house :)
Great!
So cool! I would love to do this with someone.
Yes...This is a great concept...must try it
Interesting to see the aging as reflec of real living time!
Pitty Brazilian mail would not work for this :(
What a great idea :-) Someone interested? Please invite me by mail.
cool idea...
Nice idea! I want to try this too. Who wants to be my partner?
Cool idea! I really want to try this too! Anyone interested? :)
Great! I want to do that as well! But...I do not quite understand how it works. You send the same postcard over and over again, back-and-forth, and just add a stamp of that particular country where you are? Or between two countries? So, if I look for a partner, say Finland, we send a card and send it back again but add a new stamp? Right? Just add a new stamp to the others? I wonder if that will work in Holland! I am very doubtful. But it is worth a try! So, who wants to be my partner? I like the idea a lot.
The idea is cool indeed and I would love to try it with someone.
Who is interested? Please message me if you are!!
My only worry is, who gets to keep the postcard once the space is done? I can imagine that both partners would love to have this postcard in their collection.
Yes, it works, I did it together with the postcrossing member Turtles, I think our card was mailed seven times... :)
I did this with a friend also. It took a few months to fill. Very fun!
@mogglits: you can take two cards!
@annemarrit gave me an idea ... Person A sends Person B a card with short message, then person B sends it to Person C and then it goes to Person D, etc. ... same card, written and postmarked, but to lots of different people. All the postage and postmarks will be covered up, but each person could note where they are sending from in the message field. Fun!
Fantastic idea, but I would rather prefer to swap with somebody, where we would pick a long-wide (big) postcards, always use 1-2 stamp (with greater value to match the postage) per sending, always use different stamps, and avoid stamping it over the older ones.... because its a pitty to have covered stamps...if anybody outside Europe interested in doing this with Croatia let me know.. ;) btw. this kind of swapping could last for one year, no need to be send immediately when you got it.
AnneMarit yes this also works in holland. We did it with a few friends in a few countries. Not over and over again but the same card to 5-6 different countriesans altho we were ssceptic about the Dutch mail it worked well.
@PostMuse what a wonderful idea, please count me IN!
Okay ... I have @mogglits in on my experiment of sending one card to many people, no worries about covering over postage and postal markings, just experimenting to see how many countries we can get the one card to visit. Who else wants to join? Maybe I should do a forum post?
@postmuse You can count me in if you want to. :)
:) I would like to join!
@Postmuse - Sounds like a Chain Round Robin - They have some on the Postcrossing Forum...
http://forum.postcrossing.com/viewthread.php?tid=89971
I have this postcard book and have been wanting to try this for some time. If anyone's interested send me a PM.
Neat idea and one I will have to try. Thanks!
I'm very keen to do this as well! The card would look amazing over time. We are in New Zealand, if any one would like a card from here!
Wow, amazing idea! The card itself will have a memorial and historical value.. Love this idea! Let me know if anyone want to do this with me! :D
I love this idea! Is there a thread for this in the forums?
...pitty of the stamps!
An interesting idea. Whoever who wants to try this, pls count me in! :)
I remember the original post well, it's what compelled me to buy the book for a friend. I have a blog post written about our progress as well: http://keepcalmandsendon.blogspot.ca/2014/01/continuous-swap.html
The card isn't quite filled up yet but were getting there, slowly :)
omg i want to try this. but not sure if my postoffice would allowed the postcard to be sent ahaha
I really need to try this! it sounds sooo amazing! Thanks a lot for the great idea!
In Forum there is something comparable going on.
It is called Chain card RR. There the stamps don't get covered by other stamps, but you also have no message usually.
here you find it in the forum:
http://forum.postcrossing.com/viewthread.php?tid=89971
And if you are courious you can see here my already received chain cards:
https://picasaweb.google.com/117111030523821914488/ChainCards
we've done something similar in the german forum, but not back and forth between two members....instead in a circle from the first member to the second, then to the third, and so on, until it's back to it's original sender (6 mailings).
Recently a friend and I have bought Keri Smith's postcard book and it's a personal RR between the two of us, sending each other the cards out of the book. This is the one I just received two days ago:
Before: https://picasaweb.google.com/Kugusch/MachDiesePostkartenFertig?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLcreSw26r5NA#6059991801364011746
After: https://picasaweb.google.com/Kugusch/MachDiesePostkartenFertig?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLcreSw26r5NA#6059992951948970338
@PostMuse - It's like the bookring/ray (we played on bookcrossing). Count me in of course ;)
I wanted to try this expiriment and sent to a postcrossing friend. It never came back.....
Great! Love to try :-D
I tried with 5 friends but it never returned :( But I love to try again soon - perhaps with fewer participants...
What a wonderful and funny experiment :)
I would like to do this. Anybody wanna start or even be my partner? Email me.
Wow! This sounds so wonderful. I'd love to do this with someone. I'm in Canada.
ME TOO!!! I want to do this too! I'm in USA!
wow sounds awesome i would luv to exchange with someone please
How funny! A bit late responding, but if anyone still interested in trying this, PM me - let's do it! (Im in Finland)
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