Postcrossing Blog

Two weeks ago, Paulo & I took a little roadtrip to Amsterdam. After much vla, stroopwafles and hagelslag, we ventured into the obligatory visit to postcard shops to stock our collections. And what better place to do this in Amsterdam, than 'Friends of Art’, in Keizergracht 510?

'Friends of Art’ is a postcard & poster shop in Amsterdam that is well-known amongst local postcrossers – and for a good reason! Their collection is so vast that they have it neatly organized by themes and artists. No matter how peculiar your subject of interest is, you can find a postcard of it here! Sacha Siebels, who runs the 'Friends of Art’, tells us that postcrossers often come to the shop with lists of requests, trying to find that special postcard that will make the receiver happy :)

A big part of the postcards sold in 'Friends of Art’ are printed by Art Unlimited, a Dutch company founded in 1981 by Jos Smit, who we’ve met during this visit. Being in the business of printing postcards for almost 30 years, Mr. Smit has a lot of stories to tell – he can pick a postcard almost at random and tell us something interesting about the work of art or the artist who did it. He describes Art Unlimited's moto as “a passion for pictures”, shadowing away from touristic viewcards and prefering to focus on postcards with paintings, illustrations or artistic photography. His approach to which ones get printed is rather simple: “If I like it, there are bound to be others who like it as well!”, he explains. If the sales of over 300 million postcards in 35 countries are any indication, he seems to have excellent taste! :)

Last Saturday, a large group of Dutch postcrossers visited the Art Unlimited warehouse & shop in Alkmaar, and reported back with lots of photos – and postcards! Check out Jetske's lovely photos from the event.

Can’t visit Amsterdam? Don’t worry! Art Unlimited's postcards are available in museums and stationery shops all around the world, or through their online shop.

David “the mad postcard collector” from the United Kingdom has amassed over 100,000 postcards for his collection. This 56 year old multilingual Postcrosser is also a world traveler.

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

I have been hooked on collecting postcards since I was a teenager. I joined two postcard-collecting groups within Mensa, one who was already also a Postcrosser, introduced me to Postcrossing, and I have been totally hooked ever since! My wife, Jeannette, keeps telling me off because I spend so much time writing postcards! I have always enjoyed having the postman deliver mail, so Sundays and public holidays are sad because there is no mail. I am so well-known by my local postmen that I even had a postcard addressed simply to 'The mad postcard collector, Felixstowe' delivered to me!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love travelling and have visited more than 70 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. I love music. I learned to play the guitar (but not very well) and wrote my own songs. I even recorded several of my songs, although they are not available commercially. And I love languages too: I studied French, German, Spanish and Latin at school, taught myself Dutch, Italian, Russian and several other languages; I’m learning Japanese at evening classes too. So my hobbies of travel, languages and postcards are all related.

This is a picture of me playing my guitar and 'performing’ at my 50th birthday party!

This picture, taken two years ago, shows me when I changed a small amount of money ($100) at a bank in Uzbekistan.

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

One picture shows Bent Hill Post Office, Felixstowe. It’s a short walk from where I live. I buy most of my postcards there and all of my stamps, so I’m their favourite customer! The other picture, which is not so clear, is a scanned copy of a picture taken for a newspaper in 2006; it shows me with a few of my postcards and with some of the crates in which I store my collection.

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

I have received nearly 3000 official postcards through Postcrossing, many more through swaps, Round Robins etc. I cannot single out one postcard as so many are my favourites!

Letters of note is a site that gathers fascinating and entertaining letters, postcards and other mail items. They’re special for a number of reasons, but one way or another have gone unnoticed until now.

For example, remember the movie Who framed Roger Rabbit? It was groundbreaking at the time because of the way the animated characters acted seamlessly with the living characters of the movie.

The following memo was send by RIchard Williams, the movie’s director of animation to all the people working on the animation department:

Isn’t it precious, now that we know that they’ve achieved this effect so well? This, and many other wonderful examples, on lettersofnote.com.

Before joining Postcrossing, Yvonne from Cape Coral, Florida, USA, had never sent or received a postcard. Now, she has over 1400 in her collection.

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

I had heard about Postcrossing from a forum post on Bookcrossing.com. I had visited the front page of the website several times without joining. Since, at the time, I had never sent or received a postcard in my entire life, I wondered who still sent postcards? Apparently the answer is me! I was hooked by about the 15th postcard I ever sent through Postcrossing. Finland, Germany, Brazil, New Zealand, Portugal, and Japan were all very foreign countries to me and I was so excited to be able to exchange postcards with people who lived there. The fact is that 1,400 postcards later, I am still excited to send and receive postcards to and from the common-to-Postcrossing but foreign-to-me countries.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I do enjoy reading quite a bit particularly mystery/thriller type books set in the area where I live. There is a very successful author. Randy Wayne White, that writes specifically about Southwest Florida and many others who set their books in Florida like Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiaasen, Jonathon King, Harlan Coben, Laurence Shames, and James O. Born.

I also enjoy nature photography and concentrate my efforts on the huge variety of birds that call South Florida home either year round, during migration, or during the winter. I also have a weakness for Reality TV shows that involve contests (for example, Survivor, Project Runway, or Top Chef). Here is one of my favorite photos.

After joining Postcrossing I realized that postal stamps and cancellation marks are very unique things. I got my own Mailer’s Postmark Permit so that I can cancel my own mail.

(although I live in they city of Cape Coral, we do not have a Postmaster; as such, my postmark is issued by Fort Myers which is the city that manages our mail)

Lastly, I enjoy volunteering my time. As many of you might already know, I am part of the Postcrossing Team and most of my volunteer hours are dedicated to them. For a local club, I created a website including content and now maintain it. I also record articles for Wikipedia through the Spoken Wikipedia project. I randomly select articles that interest me. The resulting spoken article can be heard online or downloaded.

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

I have a post office box and have never met the person who delivers my mail to it.

My post office from the outside.

I keep my postcards in plastic tubs sorted by country. When I took this picture I only had two tubs … now I have three almost full ones.

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

You can get an idea of the types of postcards that I like in my favorites list but I cannot really pick just one favorite. There have been so many amazingly kind people who have read my profile and have been able to pick the perfect postcard and pair it with beautiful stamps. I do seem to have a preference for handmade or self-made postcards.

If I must pick one to show and tell, then I will pick the one that combined my love of maps (which predates Postcrossing) and self-made postcards (DE-282950). The person who sent me the postcard is a cartographer and she created a postcard out of a map that she had designed!

This next postcard I love because it combined things I love – cats, computers, and humor. It also happens to be the fifth postcard I ever received from Finland (FI-33265).

You’ve done it again! :) Five million received postcards in five years, pretty neat, hum?

We know you’re all eager to know the details so here we go…

The five millionth postcard received through Postcrossing traveled from Elefantus in Italy to ployploy in Thailand. Lovely card, isn’t it?

Nobody guessed the right countries (from Italy to Thailand), so we’ll split the surprise between Elefantus and ployploy – congratulations!

PS – We apologize for the sudden drop in the countdown numbers towards the end – we had some unexpected cache issues that caught us by surprise, and didn’t allow us to make the magic screenshot we usually do on these events. Bummer!