Postcrossing Blog

What if you could send a postcard today, and schedule the date in which it should arrive? Wouldn’t that be handy for birthday postcards and other such messages? Well, there’s a place in the Netherlands where you can do this – and eat cake while doing it too! Your postcards get put on a “date slot” in a giant calendar wall, ready to be mailed when the day comes… it’s genius! :)

We invited Tiny Klever, the owner of this magical postcard-café to tell us more about it. Here’s her story:

“Dude!” the 12-year old boy said to his friend. The friend apparently made some ‘childish’ remark when the two of them were looking for postcards. They were quick to choose, however, and bought five.

“Are they the youngest customers you ever had?” one of my regulars, a 69-year old retired university lecturer drinking his second fat free cappuccino, asked.

“Without parents, definitely.” I said.

Francobolli is a place where you, while drinking coffee or tea, can choose a postcard (we have 300 to 400 different kinds for you to choose from), write it, and have it send on any day you want. The Postcard Café, one of my English guests once called it.

Often children come with their parents and a lot of them already know that when visiting Francobolli they get to choose a card, they may write and send it. To thank grandma for staying over, to congratulate friends with their birthday or to send it to one of their siblings who is not present. As one of the mothers asks her eldest boy when they are having Sunday brunch with us: “Who deserves a postcard today?”

(Viggo (on the right) sends a card to his grandparents, thanking them for staying over and letting him eat a lot of junk food.
Photo: Martine de Clercq)

There are students from fraternity houses who spend one afternoon every half-year writing birthday cards to all of their friends. They barely have time to drink their fresh mint tea or eat their sandwich. See them scribbling away, iPad at the ready, discussing which card fits whom, checking addresses and making sure they get the dates right. Because all these cards need to be put in the right slot in the calendar wall, in order for them to be delivered on exactly the right date.

The calendar wall with written postcards to be delivered. Photo: Elizabeth van Hasselt.

There are so many reasons people send postcards… because a card reminds you of someone, just for the fun of it, to say thank you, to wish someone good night, to remind yourself of the promise you made (quit smoking, have more fun, you name it). A Taiwanese woman came in every day for a few weeks, ordered a latte macchiato and a carrot cake and wrote a postcard (every day!!) to the ex-prime minister of Taiwan, who is currently serving time in jail. She did not know whether her cards would arrive and surely wasn’t expecting an answer to her writings… Intriguing, don’t you think?

So, whenever you are in the neighborhood, come and have a drink. Combine it with one of our delicious home made pies or a freshly made sandwiches and write a card to your loved ones. Or just come to have a look; you’re most welcome!

Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? I mean, just look at that wall!

Francobolli is on Apothekersdijk 38 in Leiden (Netherlands), right by the canal. Next time you’re in town, don’t miss it! :)

We often get emails from more enthusiastic postcrossers, asking why there aren’t more members in exotic locations – like South America or Africa! Well, we’d love to have more members in all the countries… but it turns out, a lot of the things we take for granted in some countries are not a given in many other places out there.

I was thinking about these issues the other day, when an email from Darío popped on our inbox. Darío (aka dariomartinezb) lives in the Dominican Republic, and he told us the story of how hard it is for people there to do Postcrossing… and how he managed to solve this problem in his town! It’s a really heartwarming story that I thought we should share with you. Here’s Darío:

The problem with Postcrossing in my country is that the Dominican postal service suffers from huge disadvantages: slow delivery times, frequent misplaced or lost mail, damages to mail delivered and so on. When users started to join, they had to wait over two months to get their first postcards after they got registered some of the sent ones. This disappointed many people and they complained at me for that.

Then I talked to my mailman (we became friends last year) and he explained some sad things. When the postal service receives a card for someone that never had received anything before, they waited until a second or third correspondence arrived and then deliver the bunch. Why? Many reasons: the mailman didn’t know the address, the place was too far away, or simply they didn’t consider a postcard to be that urgent. I tell you, that shocked me!

My mailman suggested that I rent a P. O. Box and shared with friends. The mail is delivered daily to P. O. Boxes and there are no restrictions on sharing the address. So, I decided to become myself a mailman to my friends. And now people are enjoying Postcrossing more than ever! A friend and I pick up the mail everyday and distribute to their owners.

This has been the only way to make this enjoyable to many people. Last year in January the Dominican Republic was stuck in the early DO-200… We are now approaching DO-1000! I know that’s not much, but we are just getting started! :)

Isn’t that fantastic? Hurray for Darío (left) and Ramón (right), on their way to deliver today’s batch of postcards! :)

We know many Postcrossers take their yearly break in the upcoming weeks, to relax and visit new places.

If you are one of them and you’ll be away from your home or school address for a while, don’t forget to switch your account to the Inactive status in advance — you can do that easily just by editing your Postcrossing account. This will tell Postcrossing not to give your address to any other members while you are away. You can still send some postcards if you’d like, but you won’t be sent any until you’re ready to receive them.

When you’re back, all you need to do is to switch your account back to Active and you’ll be in business again! Rest assured, all your due postcards will then be sent your way.

Oh, and don’t forget to re-stock with postcards from the places where you’ll be spending your days away!

Bon voyage!

Willa (aka PostcardPerfect) is an enthusiastic postcrosser from the Philippines. She does Postcrossing with her two sons, and enjoys shopping for postcards everywhere she goes! :)

Here is what she had to say to our interview questions:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I discovered Postcrossing through a blog called Postcards From Miss Igorota, owned by a fellow Filipino who lives in New Jersey, USA. At the time, she was offering to send a free postcard for those who wanted to received one and I was so curious and delighted when I received her postcard.

I followed the Postcrossing link there, signed up and sent my first 5 postcards. Later I found out that another blogger whose blog I frequently visited, was one of my recipients and I was so happy when I saw my postcard on her blog (you can see it here)! Since then, sending and receiving postcards became part of my daily life.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

Since I’ve been in two countries already, I can share photos of both post offices where I’ve sent my postcards from. Here’s the one in Canada:

And my current post office in the Philippines:

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

This is a tough question and I’m sure a lot of postcrossers would agree. It is really hard to pick a favorite and even I we do, it takes a lot of thinking and convincing and sorting! :)

But ok, my most favorites are Gotochi from Japan, which I think are quite special. It says so much about the Japanese culture – and I know how hard to get these postcards is, because they can only be bought from their place of origin. I’m so thankful that I have a friend in Japan, Clarissa, who sends Gotochi cards to me from time to time whenever she’s on a family vacation.

Another favorite is the Royal Couple, Will & Kate. I wasn’t a fan of royalty at all, until I saw how beautiful they are! When I was in Canada, I followed everything about their engagement and wedding and everything else. Not to mention their wedding date falls on the same date as my birthday :D. I just thought that they are the most beautiful couple in the world, and maybe someday, I might be able to meet or just to see them in person! (wishful thinking! :D)

Then there’s Mickey Mouse, just to satisfy the kid in me. :)

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

Quite a few actually! I’ve helped my two sons, aged 8 and 12, sign up on the website, because they decided they wanted to received postcards of their own. And then lots of my fellow bloggers got curious when I shared my sent and received Postcrossing cards on Facebook, so they ended up signing up as well.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

First thing that comes to mind is… shopping! I mean, who doesn’t love shopping? Really! :D Whenever I go, I always look for a bookstore, hoping to find some good postcards.

There’s also the friendship of course – who would’ve thought that good and kind people still outnumbered the not-so-nice ones!

And lastly, seeing different places, discovering cultures and history, learning about other people who live on the other part of the globe, and to find out that all of us have one thing in common… that we love postcards! :D

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

Definitely!!! Like Norfolk Island for example, I did not know they were a country! :D And Dracula’s Castles from Romania never failed to amazed me! Oh… how about Lithuania, Latvia, Moldova or Croatia? There are so many of them I want to see. My bucket list of the places to visit just keep growing each day I received a postcard from a “new” country!

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes! When I moved back here to the Philippines in October 2011, I help organized the first meet up and we’ve been doing them ever since. Our last meet up was on April 05, 2014, and just like on all the previous meetings, none of us wanted to go home early because there are so many postcard and stamp related stories to tell. And every after meet up, we all realize we need more time! :D

Hurray! The Guernsey Postcrossing stamp has just launched today and is now making its way around the world to many happy mailboxes!

In order to celebrate the event, postcrossers from the island and abroad got together today to send their first cards with the shiny new stamp. Guernsey Post kindly prepared a room for the eager postcrossers, who wrote and stamped to their heart’s content…

… and ate the delicious cake a talented baker at the post office did for us! Isn’t it gorgeous?

The local newspaper and TV channel were also in attendance, and so we hope that a few islanders will find out about the project in the media tomorrow and decide to join!

And here’s Michael (aka GIBSONMS) with the stamp! Michael was the enthusiastic postcrosser who approached Guernsey Post with the idea for a stamp.

Our big thank you to him for his initiative and to Dawn Gallienne at Guernsey Post, for deeming Postcrossing worthy of this honor. We really appreciate it!

It was a great day! Happy Postcrossing, everyone! :)

PS – If you’re interested, the stamp, postcard, and postcard+stamp+cancellation mark combos can be purchased online at the Guernsey Stamps website.