Postcrossing Blog

Time flies faster than a postcard with a ton of priority airmail stickers!

Postcard number 20 million might already be on the way to its destination by now… which means, it’s time to open the guessing contest once again! :D

For those who didn’t participate the last times, it goes like this: every member has a chance to bet on the day and time on which they think the postcard number 20 million will be registered. And of course, there are prizes for the best guesses!

The member who guesses the exact minute when postcard number 20 million is registered will win a pack of 40 postcards (20 classic, 20 luxe) from MOO + Keri Smith's fantastic new postcard book – which we’ll be reviewing and giving away soon.

But there’s more! If you’re not the lucky one, you could still win something: each of the 4 next best guesses (before or after the registering time) will also win a pack of 20 postcards from MOO!

Some rules: each time slot can only be chosen by one person, so the first person to pick that slot gets to keep it. You can change it at a later stage, if you want, but only from the available time slots left. We will close the bets when there are 1,500 postcards left to postcard 20,000,000. There are some more rules, which you can see on the contest page.

So… what are you waiting for? Brush up on your math skills or roll your dices… but be fast! Slots can run out quickly! :)

PS – MOO has also created a special page for postcrossers, giving all new customers a 15% discount on their first order. A small percentage of every sale made through that page reverts towards Postcrossing – so with each pack you buy, you’re also helping the project. Win-win! :)

How do you imagine things will look like one hundred years from now? Minority Report-style interfaces? Teleportation? Universal translators? Or perhaps space colonies… It’s hard to make predictions, right?

100 years ago, French artist Villemard did just that, in a magnificent collection of postcards which Vivento brought to our attention some days ago. They provide a delightful glimpse into the imagination of our great-grandparents, and what they thought the future would look like in the year 2000. The postcards are currently owned by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, who suggests they might have been used to accompany food products, similar to Hildebrand’s chocolate packaging.

Some predictions were rather accurate, others… not so much. Take a look:

An operator would sit in its cubicle, while machines would break rocks and assemble a building.

Firemen had wings to better fight fires!

In the school, books were somehow processed in a machine (with a hand-powered crank) and then transmitted to students.

A chemical dinner – it’s funny how a meal was portrayed in a very elaborate and formal setting, even if food had been condensed into pills and could technically be swallowed in 2 seconds…

At the tailor, measurements would be mechanically taken, and a machine would then produce a suit from rolls of fabric.

Interestingly, some things weren’t going to to change all that much in Villemard’s imagination… like fashion sense! :)

The collection consists of 25 postcards, and they’re all fascinating – with lots of flying machines! You can check them out on Tom Wigley’s set on Flickr.

October 9th is World Post Day!

On this date, the world celebrates the hard work and social contributions of all the postal services… so don’t forget to thank your mail carrier for the wonderful job they do! :)

Across the world, post offices are celebrating this special day in many different ways! To help you celebrate with them, we’ve done a little research and compiled all the information we could find in this page:

Check it out to see if your own postal service is doing something special – you might be surprised! If you know of any other activities taking place on this date that we’ve missed, just leave a comment below.

But that’s not all! This year we also wanted to do something special, and so we’ve invited our advertisers to join the celebrations! Many of them accepted the challenge, and created special offers for postcrossers! So if your stock of postcards is running a little low, now would be the perfect time to re-stock… enjoy!

Here they are:

BuyMeCard – 10% discount for all postcards and stickers

Promocode 02ZWIYOF3NUO . Website is in Russian only.

Cardcetera – 15% discount + 4 random customers will get a free pack of cards

Promocode pcmailday2013.

Heidin Korttipaja – 15% discount

Promocode POSTI. Website in Finnish, ships to Finland.

Kaartfanaat – 20% discount on orders above €25

Promocode WPD2013. Website is in English, Dutch and German.

Mark Stempel – 20% discount on all postcards

Promocode WorldPostDay. Website in Russian only.

Minor Postcards – 20% discount, minimum order €10

Promocode wpd13. Website in English and Finnish.

MOO.com – 15% discount on all postcards

No need for promocode – just use the link above.

Natuurlijkefoto.nl – 15% discount

Promocode worldpostday. Website is in English, Dutch and German. Ships to Europe only.

Nederlandse ansichtkaarten – 15% discount on all postcards and postcard sets

Promocode WPD2013. Website in Dutch, ships only to the Netherlands.

Paper Postcards – 15% discount

Promocode WPD2013. Website in Russian only

PostCardPress – 20% discount

No need for promocode – just use the link above. Website in Russian and English.

PostcardShop – 15% discount

Promocode Postcrossing

PostcardWorld.eu – 20% discount + a free extra postcard

Promocode PARTY

Postzegelerop – 20% discount + Vintage Dutch postcardset free

Promocode Post. Website is in Dutch only.

The Postcard Store – 20% discount

Promocode PCSWP20. Ships worldwide, but check details here.

Zazzle – 65% discount on all postcards

Promocode POSTCROSSING.

All these offers will be valid through the end of October 9th (on the westmost timezone). Pretty fantastic, right? Happy World Post Day everyone! :)

Come meet hope97 (aka Danielle), who lives in Morocco. She loves travelling and has been to over 60 countries… very impressive!

Here is what she had to say:

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

A friend introduced me to Postcrossing while we were working together in Japan. I’d been complaining about the lack of mail from people back home and she told me about the website. Once I received my first postcard, I was hooked. I also like the fact that I can take my Postcrossing account with me where ever I live. To date I’ve been an active user in Japan, the USA and Morocco. I love that I can just update my account and postcards will be waiting for me.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

If you consider traveling a hobby, then I would say yes, I do. I’ve been to over 60 countries in the last 15 years and I have no plans to stop anytime soon. I also collect random things during these travels – Christmas ornaments, magnets, squished pennies and nesting dolls.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Receiving postcards!

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

Here’s me, posting my postcards:

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

My favorite postcard came from a user in Ukraine. She sent me a birthday postcard and along with the card there were two small nesting dolls. This one really made my day and combined two of my hobbies. This card highlights one thing I really like about Postcrossing – 9 times out of 10 users take the time to read your profile and will try their best to send you something that shows they’ve read the profile and they care about what they are sending to a virtual stranger.

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

I hosted a table once at the yearly JETFest convention while I was in Japan. I am confident that a few people joined from that event. A few of my friends have also joined. I am always talking about the website to people when I travel because I think it’s a great way to feel connected to the world, especially when you live away from your home country.

I’ve also used Postcrossing for my English club while working in Japan. I am not sure if any of those students continued with it, but we had fun sending the cards during our club activities.

My participation with Postcrossing has allowed me to share the world with my students. I’ve also used the cards I’ve received to create a PYP unit on journeys and travel for a first grade classroom in Detroit. The students had a great time looking through my collection and then selecting a card to do research about that country. I currently share all the postcards I receive with my first graders here in Morocco. They get a kick out of all the different cards that I receive.

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

I like it when I receive cards from places that I’ve never been too or that seem exotic to me like Mauritius, Kazakhstan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, etc… I am continually surprised by the number of users and countries on the site. I think it’s an amazing and wonderful thing that so many people participate.

You might have heard the name PostEurop before, most likely because they organise the yearly EUROPA stamps competition. What you perhaps don’t know is that their functions go well beyond this task: through their several forums and groups, PostEurop oversees the cooperation between 52 public postal services in the European continent, in a variety of topics such as social responsibility, best practices or quality of service.

Last week, PostEurop celebrated its 20th anniversary with a Plenary Assembly and several other events. Since Postcrossing is very active in Europe, PostEurop invited the attending delegations to take part in an exhibition about Postcrossing – by sharing what the project was like in their country.

Sixteen countries accepted the challenge and made a stand with general information and statistics, and shared some postcards sent and received. Other PostEurop countries that didn’t know about Postcrossing yet, had the opportunity to learn about the project. Here are some photos from the event:

Belgian postcrossers were also invited to come around and check out the stands, and despite the inconvenient schedule in the middle of the week, some did come! There was even a tiny post office where cards and stamps could be purchased and stamped with a special anniversary cancellation stamp.

Oh, by the way, the winners of this year’s EUROPA stamps competition were announced during the plenary: Finland and Turkey took home the big honours!