Postcrossing Blog

Meet Nuch, aka iamnuchy! She’s the #1 postcrosser in Thailand, and loves exploring new countries and their mailboxes. Above is a photo of her, taken in Sikkim, India. Here is what she had to say to our spotlight interview:

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

I found out about Postcrossing from Thailand postcard lovers club’s webboard. I think it’s a great idea to write and to receive postcards to/from people all over the world. I love travelling and photography but can’t do much of it, so travelling with postcards fulfills my passion.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Yes. I’ve been collecting stamps since I was a primary school student. At that time I just collected by cutting all stamps from my parents letters. ^_^ But today I collect only mint stamps because I can’t find any letters in my mailbox anymore. I also do some knitting (just starting to learn how to knit), drawing and cooking.

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

Here is my mailbox, and one of the boxes where I keep my postcards:

And here is my local post office:

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

Difficult to answer…I have too many favorite cards. I enjoy beautiful landscapes and architecture and Panorama views. I always smile when I receive a cute Hello Kitty or Moomin postcard. And I like to learn more about other countries and their mailboxes/postboxes.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I think everybody likes the act of opening their mailbox and finding some postcards there. I also like the moment of searching a postcard in my stock to match the request.

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

Yes. Uzbekistan, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, Oman, Ivory Coast, etc. Actually, every first postcard from a country which I have never been to!

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.

Is this poem familiar to you? It’s part of the movie Night Mail, a 1936 documentary film about a LMS (London, Midland and Scottish) Railway mail train.

We’ve talked about the Railway Post Offices before, but on this documentary, you can actually see them in action:

Isn’t it fascinating? The on-board mail sorting, the clip mechanism to snatch the mail bags, the control room… oh! and the British countryside of the 30s!

The poem, which is recited at the end of the documentary is by W. H. Auden. Wikipedia provides some insight about it:

As recited in the film, the poem’s rhythm imitates the train’s wheels as they clatter over track sections, beginning slowly but picking up speed so that by the time the penultimate verse the narrator is at a breathless pace. As the train slows toward its destination the final verse is more sedate.

I hope you enjoyed that glimpse of life on a Railway train!

As for the results of last week’s giveaway, the eight lucky winners are: ladybug513, anitag71, kirimon, lovpinka, leoloco, journeyy, gwyllion and lars. Congratulations!

Would you like to be able to exchange more postcards at the same time? If so, then we might have some good news for you!

If we could just choose, we would love to allow everyone to send as many as they wish. However, limits are necessary in Postcrossing to keep the system balanced for everyone and also to keep the project safe. But we know that the current limits are particularly hard on new members who want to get started quickly and must wait for their limits to grow slowly. So, we have been working on a way to allow new Postcrossers to exchange more postcards, while still having the required limits – by adjusting them slightly.

Today we are doing an update on the formula for limits in Postcrossing. From now onwards, the limit for new accounts will start to increase after the first 5 postcards sent (and registered). Afterwards, the number of postcards you can send will increase by 1 for each 10 postcards sent (it was for each 20, so it grows twice as fast!). After the first 35 postcards sent, it increases by 1 on each multiple of 50 postcards sent.

We know this might sound a little confusing, so we made a little graph to explain the difference between before and after. Here it is:

As you see, the limits grow faster initially, allowing the account to reach a more comfortable level sooner.

How does this affect you? If you have sent under 100 postcards so far, you will be seeing an increase on your limit between 1 and 3 extra postcards. But not only new members get to send extra postcards: if you have already sent 100 postcards or more, then you’ll have one extra postcard as well. That’s right! Everyone gets (at least) one extra postcard with these changes – merry Christmas! :).

The limit continues to increase up until 100 traveling postcards – we believe that should be more than enough for everyone. And of course, it is the limit that we are changing – you are free to send any amount you want within your quota. You can learn more about the new limits here.

We are quite excited about these updates and we hope you’ll enjoy these changes. Happy Postcrossing everyone! :)

Hi! We’re the Little Mail Carriers, Little Paulo and Little Ana! In the last months, we’ve been busy cruising the world in the hands of postcrossers, but we’ve recently came back to the office for an impromptu visit… You see, we’ve heard rumours that there was going to be a huge Postcrossing meeting in Germany, and we didn’t want to miss out!

We’ve been to a few meetings before, but nothing compared to this one! There were almost 60 people in attendance from a dozen different countries (including Australia!), all staying in the same house… we knew it was going to be a blast! :)

Let us show you what we did there:

On Friday, we took a day trip to Münster, the “bicycle capital of Germany”. We did the tourist tour through all the main sites with a big group of postcrossers and visited a few Christmas markets. We loved the gingerbread hearts, and the giant nutcracker!

Postcard shopping was, of course, an important part of the trip. This little shop was crowded with all the postcrossers ooh’ing and aaaah’ing over the cute postcards!

While we were waiting for everyone to finish their postcard shopping, we spotted a postman on his bike! We asked him if we could take a ride, which he graciously allowed!

Back at the Einschlingen Guest house, there was much to be done! Have you ever received a postcard from a meetup? They’re usually filled with signatures from all the participants. In a meeting this big, it takes a long time to sign all the cards… We chose a few, and made sure that Paulo didn’t miss a card. Then, we gave it a go as well!

All the postcrossers seemed to have brought something sweet from their country, and the tables were piled up with deliciousness!

And oh! There was a huge pile of presents for the Christmas lottery! Everyone’s names were entered on a bowl, and norbaer helped people draw out names and presents! In the end, all postcrossers had received something cute or funny :)

On Saturday morning, there was an article on the local newspaper about the meeting! We didn’t understand all the words, but it sure looked good.

On Saturday, we also wandered on the streets of Bielefeld. We visited a famous postcard shop, met a few local postcrossers, saw the Christmas market … and a crepes stand which had soooo much Nutella! :)

We were almost the last ones to leave on Sunday afternoon, and we were quite sad to go… We loved meeting so many people that share in common a passion for postcards and Postcrossing. Old and new, from near or far… we had a lot of fun in the days we spent together! Perhaps we’ll see you there next year?

PS – Can you guess how many postcards were signed on this meetup? Answer on the forum in this thread for a chance to win some prizes! :)

Wow! Did you see that? There were hundreds of comments on our last giveaway! You really like the Go Green postcards, don’t you? :)

So, without further waiting, the postcard packs go to Deern, super-hero and nt – congratulations!

Once again, a big thank you Brenda for sponsoring this giveaway. And for the rest of you who didn’t win anything this time, don’t be sad, there are more giveaways coming!

In other news, did you see this fun compilation of Christmas facts by MOO?

(click for bigger)

It’s full of really interesting tidbits, like how many cards Santa Claus receives in a year, and how long it would take for him to open them all! :)

MOO would also like to remind you that you should order any Christmas postcards before December 13th, to ensure a timely delivery!