Postcrossing Blog

We can probably all agree receiving a postcard in the mail from an exotic faraway place is one of the more exciting things that might happen in a day… but did you know that some decades ago, a pharmaceutical company used this precise notion to come up with one of the most unique marketing schemes of all time? Read on – it’s a good story!

Between the years 1954 and 1968, Abbott Laboratories of Illinois sent out 240,000 postcards every couple of weeks to doctors, nurses, and health facilities all over the world. They manufactured, stamped, and postmarked over 170 unique postcards from 165 different towns in 85 countries. The postcards’ authenticity of origin intrigued the recipients, increasing their overall effectiveness.

Each card began with the salutation, “Dear Doctor, ” except for several versions sent to non-doctors that omitted this greeting and just had the message. The pictures on the cards displayed local scenes portraying the place, culture, or people of the particular country it was mailed from. The entertaining message on the back was written in a friendly tone, and never forgot to plug their prized product—an intravenous anesthetic by the name of Pentothal. This drug, by the way, is still used today not only for its anaesthetic effects, but also in some places for its truth serum properties!

It is a bit of a mystery how this novel idea originated. In an article by Daniel Friedman, one Abbott employee, Dean Carson, was quoted saying, “I just came up with this idea and they said it was fine.” Others speculate it was either the Abbott advertising executive, Tom Bird or Charless Hahn, the Chicago Sun Times stamp editor, who had previously collaborated on a magazine together advertising Abbott products to doctors in Latin America.

Whoever actually invented this genius marketing method back then probably didn’t fully realize the extent of popularity these postcards possess among present-day collectors. In September 2012, a bunch of Dear Doctor postcards were sold on eBay raking in hundreds of dollars for each card—the record price was $298!

Impressive, isn’t it?

By the way, the photos that illustrate this post come from the collection of Tom Fortunato, who graciously allowed us to use them. Tom runs deardoctorpostcards.com, a website for Dear Doctor postcard collectors – check it out!

Today we have another great story of members using Postcrossing in an unusual way – with inspiring results!

The librarians, employees and volunteers of De Bibliotheek Reuver (The Library of Reuver), in the Netherlands, started a Postcrossing-inspired book club! Here’s how it works: they’ve asked every postcrosser that sent them a card to name the title(s) of their favourite book(s). When they receive the card, they search the suggested books and put in a special bookshelf, on top of which the received postcards are also displayed.

They’ve also set up a large map on the wall, where they put a copy of the postcards received, and a small profile of the sender. The postcards are connected to the countries by strings, to help children find out where they are! It looks great!

As visitors of the library walk by, they’re free to choose a book from this shelf and read it, effectively picking up reading tips from all over the world! :)

Ellis (aka TheBusyLibrarian) tells us “Our readers like the book club as it gives them new or at least unexpected titles. They also like the idea that somebody took the time to name their favorite and recommend a really good/interesting book. (..) Old and new titles appear on these favorite lists. Most we have in our collection.”

The Reuver’s Library Postcrossing book club has recently been featured on the De Limburger newspaper – you can read the article (in Dutch) here. They’re also planning to organise a meetup soon, to introduce visitors to Postcrossing, and help them get started. If you’re the area, and would like to help or just get together with other postcrossers, get in touch with TheBusyLibrarian for more details.

Well done Ellis, and everyone at the the Reuver’s Library team! Big thumbs up for this initiative! :)

Sometime ago we had the pleasure to chat with Anke Weckmann, illustrator extraordinaire. She hails from a little town near Hannover, but moved to the UK in 2001 to study illustration in Camberwell College of Art and Kingston University. Since then, she has been working as a freelance illustrator in London, and her work has been featured all kinds of products, from magazines to makeup packaging, wallets to water bottles… and of course, stationery!

Anke’s quirky style features charming big headed characters and lots of nature elements. She tells us that her illustrations are drawn in ink/black pen on paper and usually coloured digitally… but where does she draw inspiration from? Read her answers to our interview below to find out!

How did you get started doing stationery design?

I’ve been commissioned to do greeting cards, postcards, files, mouse mats, notebooks, stickers etc through various companies. This is how a lot of stationery products ended up in my online shop.The only things I produced/printed myself are small notepads and greeting cards.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Inspiration can come from anywhere and everywhere. I’m not always sure where it comes from. Generally I’m very interested in shapes and colour pallettes. At the moment I’m very interested in tribes, vegetables and silence.

If you could define your style in 3 words, what would they be?

Shapes, Colours, Characters

Are you a letter/postcard writer yourself?

I used to be! When I was about 11 I had more than ten penpals and for a long time I was always writing letters and cards. Now I rarely write anymore, which is sad! But it’s mostly because my hand and arm get very tired from drawing for long hours, so I try to rest it whenever I can. I still love getting mail though. And I quite enjoy packing my shop orders and including little cards and such.

Can you show us a picture of your studio or workspace?

Thank you Anke!

You can find Anke’s postcards, greeting cards and other products at ankeweckmann.etsy.com, or through Red Cap Cards. Don’t forget to check out Anke’s blog – we’re especially fond of her Learning French illustration series! :)

Earlier in December last year, me, Paulo and a couple other postcrossers were invited on a special mission. We brought the Little Mail Carriers' cousin along for the ride, and he wrote this lively report:

Hallo from cold and snowy Lübeck, once capital of the Hanseatic league! You might have thought the reason we came all this way was to tour its UNESCO worthy architecture or try their worldwide famous marzipan… but you’d be wrong! We visited Lübeck because Schöning Verlag, one of Germany’s top makers of touristic postcards, has a factory here, and invited us to come see how postcards are made! Isn’t that exciting?!

Turns out, Bernd and Jana, two of Schöning’s employees (and our hosts in this visit), discovered Postcrossing not so long ago, and embraced it wholeheartedly! Look at the wall of postcards they’ve set up in their office:

Neat hum? How nice it must be, to do Postcrossing when you have literally thousands of postcards to chose from! :D

But how are they made? We’ve learnt that there are many steps involved in the process… and huge machinery!

Before printing, postcards must be designed, and Schöning has a team of designers in house to cover that task. Something we’ve discovered on our visit, is that a specific postcard is never printed by itself, but as a part of set postcards currently in demand. A technician groups these postcards together in a large sheet, and checks it for mistakes. After that, the fun begins!

Here is a picture of Paulo, holding an aluminium printing plate – you can see the outline of what they’re currently printing in there! Schöning has to make several of these plates for each set of postcards, one plate for each colour that their big machine prints in… here it is, the Heidelberg Speedmaster!

It is huge, filling up a whole section of their warehosue, and paper flashes through its several colour sections at an incredible speed! The sheets are constantly checked and adjusted, so that the colors have the right brightness and contrast every time. Then, they are fed to another machine, which gives them a shiny coating. Again, sheets whoosh past so fast that if you blink, you’ll miss them!

In the end, a technician cuts the individual postcards using a very sofisticated (and scary) cutting machine, and they’re wrapped in sets, which are then stored in Schöning’s huge warehouse. It was postcard-heaven!

They also have neat old machines, like this Heidelberg press, which at the time was being used to cut out heart-shapes on some postcards – cute!

In the end, there was still time to tour Lübeck’s Unesco historical center and drink some glühwein in the Christmas market with friendly postcrossers turtles and mondkind, who took the time to show us around.

And of course, no visit to Lübeck would ever be complete without a trip to Niederegger, the famous marzipan manufacturers! Delicious!

Coming back at the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but incredibly happy, and felt like we learned a lot in this exciting trip. Thank you Schöning for inviting us, and showing us the ropes! :)

PS – Schöning Verlag offered Postcrossing an advertising opportunity on their paperbags, and we’re asking members to vote on a design to print. Check out this forum thread for more information, and to cast your vote!

Bonnie Jeanne (aka PostMuse) hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is passionate about snail mail, mailart… and postboxes! :) Come discover more about her on this Spotlight interview.

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

I discovered Postcrossing via Bookcrossing. I have been exchanging postcards most of my adult life, 30 plus years. When the Internet came about, I joined lots of online postcard groups, and that was fun, but often the exchanges were between the same group of people. I love the randomness of Postcrossing! I think that is the thing that most attracted me to the site.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I sew, and I do a lot of mailart. I also love to travel and visit museums, especially little known museums, like the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Pennsylvania. I’m also a backyard birdwatcher and enjoy the constant chatter of the birds while I sit on my patio and write postcards and letters.

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

The mail chute is at work and I love using it. I only work three floors up, so I can actually hear the mail hit the bottom :)

The photo close-up (left) of my open mailbox at home is taken from the front. You can see how the back is also open so that in the winter I don’t have to go out on the snowy road to get my mail. A lot of people outside the US also don’t realize that we can leave our outgoing mail in our home mailbox for the mailman to take away. I leave LOTS of mail in my home mailbox.

The photo on the right shows my home mailbox in the spring. I do decorate my mailbox for seasons. In winter, I’ll string twinkling snowflakes on it and add a few other festive details. At Halloween it had a giant black spider with purple twinkling lights.

This photo shows postcards of my home mailbox inside the same postcard… very “meta”! :)

The metal mailbox is my post office box, where most of my incoming mail goes. I do get some mail at my home mailbox, but it is safer to have most of my mail go to my post office box … it is always dry, plus it is close to work, so I can get my mail before lunch and enjoy it while I eat.

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

My favorite postcards are pictures of the sender’s mailbox, even if it is only a mailslot. Some of the recent ones I’ve received are NL-1247688, DE-1267457, DE-1251668 and TW-455583.

Sometimes people write on the back of regular postcards that their mailboxes are not cute or interesting enough for a postcard. But, I think ALL mailboxes are beautiful. They are our connection to each other, even more so than email because you can hold snail mail in your hand.

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

Oh yes! A former coworker is now quite involved. As are my two oldest grandchildren. I help them with the project because they are only 5 and 3, so too young to write postcards. And I ramble on to whoever will listen about Postcrossing, at any opportunity :)

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

My very favorite part of the process is when I get an address of someone who welcomes mailart because I LOVE to make postcards.

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about snail mail. I send about 40 or so pieces of mail a week and I love the connecting with other people. Somehow political/cultural differences don’t matter when one is writing to another about some shared interest, like fountain pens, or beekeeping, or novels, or the cute little bird that sat on the back of my patio chair and sang me his life story.

Thank you so very much for listening to me my Postcrossing story! And thank you very much for this wonderful site.