Postcrossing Blog

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.

Show of hands: how many of you are fans of Postman Pat (and his black and white cat)?

We bet that for many postcrossers, this BBC series was a childhood staple and that song brings a lot of good memories!

But for those of you who don’t know it, Pat Clifton is a friendly country postman who delivers letters in the town of Greendale… unless he gets distracted by something going on the village, which he often does! He has a bright red van, and a black and white cat named Jess, in the original version.

The series is popular not only in the United Kingdom, but also around the world, so we might know him by one of his many names:

• Pieter Post (Dutch)
• Pat el cartero (Spanish)
• Postmand Per (Danish)
• Postbote Pat (German)
• Pošták Pat (Czech)
• Poštar Pat (Croatian)
• Carteiro Paulo (Portuguese)
• Pósturinn Páll (Icelandic)
• Postimies Pate (Finnish)
• Postmann Pat (Norwegian)
• Postino Pat (Italian)
• ポストマンパット (Japanese)
• Listonosz Pat (Polish)
• Postás Pat (Hungarian)
• Почтальон Пэт (Russian)

Click the links above to hear the series intro song in that language!
Know of any other versions? Do share! :)

Ana (also known as anagahan) is a member from Macedonia, a small country in the Balkans. She loves trains and all kinds of animals, and wishes she could adopt all stray cats and dogs in the world… don’t we all? :) Here’s what she had to say:

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

Well, it was sort of at random. One day, I totally accidentally spotted a blog link about postcard exchange, and all excited immediately clicked on it. By the time then my mailbox had been really neglected so this was like rekindling the old passion. I asked the blog owner if we could maybe trade postcards to which he kindly agreed, and I was full of joy. Then I anxiously started searching for more postcard blogs and on several ones I noticed people posting the question “Are you from postcrossing?” I got curious, looked it up and found it…didn’t register immediately, but once I did, you know the story, you get hooked in the blink of an eye :)

Oh, btw, the blog I mentioned above belongs to Rafal in Germany, another devoted postcrosser. So it is all his “fault” in a way ;-)

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Anything that’s mail related, so I am into philately and also I’ve been into penpalling since the early 90's. (I am a lousy penpal unfortunately).

I enjoy reading, esp. unusual books. I love finding new bookstores, where apart from books I always put my radar on for postcards, without success usually. I love going to the theater or to interesting photography exhibitions. I admire all those moments people are able to capture through their lenses.

I love music, traveling, watching tennis matches, being outside in the sun and the quiet, playing with my two cats, my neighbor’s cats and dogs, trying out new kinds of coffee and chocolate…you know, those very small things which make life really beautiful. And another thing that relaxes me and I truly enjoy is updating my postcards blog: http://thewholeworldatyourhands.blogspot.com

My cats love my postcards too, esp. ones with cats…here, my older one really enjoyed them and even picked his favourite buddy…

and while he wasn’t looking, my younger cat came, and just as he steals away his food, he took all the other cat postcards too, saying “they are mine, period!”

Cats are tough to deal with! :P

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

Well this is my dear mailbox, which when full, is one of the rare things that can make me happy on a bad day…

Unfortunately in Macedonia the street mailboxes are not really operational so I post all my mail directly at the PO. There are around 10 Post Offices which I go to more or less, depending where in town I am, but this is the one I go to most often, being in my neighborhood.

Ok, now when it comes to 'organization’ I am really awful at that! I have both sorted and unsorted postcards. Here are the sorted ones by countries

And the unsorted ones…

huh, ouch…quite a lot. And DON’T ask me where I manage to keep all my letters and stamps too…I love calling my room a 'creative chaos’ :)

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

Maybe this sounds like a cliché, but I love all my postcards, and each of them has something which makes it special.

Pick any, and I’ll give you a reason why I love it.

Coz the postcard for me is not only the image itself, but much more the message on the back, the thoughtfulness, the kind heart-warming words and stories people who don’t really know you, want to share with you, the lengths they have gone to just to make you smile.

What are you passionate about?

Does the passion for trains count? It is a fascination I have inherited from my dad and I still remember my childhood days when he would set up these model trains all around the living room during the New Year holidays.

I LOVE Norway and the entire Northern Europe in general, and I am a huge animal lover and if I could I would probably adopt all the stray cats and dogs in the world. I just wish more to be done regarding animal rights and animal welfare.

Have you met any other members in real life?

Two actually, on separate occasions: Anasty from Russia and BraveJ from Serbia. The three of us still need to find a place to eat cheesecake together :)