Postcrossing Blog

Airmail has been on my mind lately, those irresistible blue and red stripes! So simple and yet so pretty, they always bring back memories of long hand written letters from friends far away…
These days they seemed to have popped out of the vintage envelopes to be featured in all sorts of products! Check these out:

Clockwise from the top left corner:

• Airmail Pillow from Bonjour Mon Coussin
• Airmail Mighty Wallet from Dynomighty (we got one of these some time ago, and they’re fantastic!)
• Airmail Zipper Pouch from heydayhandmade on Etsy
• Mailer Tote Bag from Mokuyobi on Etsy
• Japanese Masking Tape from PrettyTape on Etsy
• Crochet Airmail from EternalSunshine on Etsy

Know of others? Please share in the comments!

In the 1830s, the United Kingdom and the United States started carrying mail bags by train on their normal routes. Then, some years later, George B. Armstrong, assistant postmaster at Chicago, came up with the idea of sorting the mail on the train, while en route to its destination, to save time. The Railway Post Office (or RPO) was born!

A Railway Post Office looked like a normal train car on the outside, but had a unique interior design, with movable cast-iron fixtures that held the mail bags for sorting. These could also be folded if space was needed, as the train wagons tended to get very crowded! They also had their own cancellation stamps used only on board, and a special hook to snatch a bag of mail on the towns where the train didn’t stop. You can a demonstration of its use here.

They became so widespread that in the 1880s, most passenger train routes in the US had their own Railway Post Office, allowing for a very efficient and speedy mail delivery. At the peak of their popularity in the 1940s, RPO’s were in use in over 9000 train routes, covering more than 200,000 route miles. In the next few decades though, the service would slowly decline and be replaced by airmail. The last Railway Post Office, which travelled between New York and Washington D.C., closed in 1977.

Railway Post Offices now live in museums around the world, and on these beautiful pictures by the Smithsonian Institution on Flickr.

Inge Löök (real name Ingeborg Lievonen) is a Finnish artist born in Helsinki in 1951. She was once a professional gardener, but today she is most famous for her Granny postcards which so many postcrossers love and collect.

When she was a child, Inge lived with her family in a 7-storey building in Helsinki. In the same building lived two older women, Alli and Fifi, who later became the inspiration for the characters in her postcards. She says the women look nearly the same as their real-life models… but they have a lot more fun!

Inge’s look on life is one of optimism and happiness, and it shows on the pictures she draws. The grannies are always happy and having fun, and their motto is “Time is not money and spending it isn’t a sin”.

She has drawn over 300 postcards on different topics, and has also illustrated several stamps and children’s books. Today she lives in Pernå, a village east of Helsinki.

This week’s spotlight interview comes from Bulgaria. dj_christina loves mailboxes and is an avid postcard collector, as you will see by her very neat albums! Here is what she had to say:

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

I learned about Postcrossing from a friend on a travel website, called VirtualTourist. It’s common for people who love to travel to like sending and receiving postcards too. Especially when you don’t have the chance to travel often :)

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I like everything mail related, not just the postcards, but also stamps, and I have a small collection of mail-related objects: such as an English mailbox magnet, Danish mailbox piggy bank; I also love travel and photography.

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

I keep the postcards in files, I have two shelves of them. And another shelf of stamp albums :)

And here is how a typical Bulgarian mailbox looks like, it’s yellow:

And here’s a mailbox piggy bank:

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

It’s very hard to decide which one, I have dozens of favourite postcards!! But I chose this English mailbox one, which has matching stamps on the back! Did I mention I like mailboxes? :) And I like postcards with matching stamps, so this one is the perfect combination. It was sent to me by AllSerene (also on Postcrossing forum). It was very nice of her to read my preferences and send me the perfect postcard :)

What are you passionate about?

I’m interested in politics but this is partly due to my work. I’m passionate about freedom and open-mindedness.

What is your favourite part of the Postcrossing process?

Picking the card, choosing the stamps, oh, and checking my mailbox every day!

Did you know there are companies out there whose job is to measure the efficiency of postal systems worldwide, to help them improve their services?

The Quotas team

Quotas is one of these companies. Based in Hamburg, they conduct international evaluations for the postal services of several countries, including Posta Slovenije, Belgian Post International, Deutsche Post, Post Danmark, La Poste France, Royal Mail and the Universal Postal Union.

But of course they can’t go to every single city or country in the world to send and measure how fast mail is delivered… that’s where you can come in!

Quotas relies on worldwide volunteers for this task: test letters (mostly with real stamps) are sent in batches to the specific areas that they are researching at the moment, and upon reception, the receiver’s job is to go to Quotas’ website and confirm the receipt. For a postcrosser, this should be simple, right? All you need to do is signup and if they need to test your area, they will contact you.

What’s in it for you, you ask? Well, besides contributing to a more efficient postal service, Quotas also gives out small monthly rewards ($7-$20, depending on the amount of letters received). These can be given out using a number of options including Amazon vouchers, Paypal payments or given away to a number of charities.

You can read more about how it works at their website.