Postcrossing Blog

Here is Sibylle from Austria. She has been collecting postcards for a long time, loves to travel and visits her favourite friends in the zoo frequently.

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

About 5 years ago I had a surprise pen pal from the USA. Our penfriendship was short-lived, but she sent me the link to Postcrossing, which was, back then, only 1 month old. I got terribly excited, thought about it, got some opinions, then registered and my first 3 cards went to Hawaii, Italy and Germany. And after absolute impatience I received my first card from Germany after a while.

I have been collecting cards and stamps ever since childhood, because my dear granny was an avid traveller and sent us cards from everywhere she went! She usually collected them afterwards, cut the stamps off to add them to our collection, but eventually I didn’t give those cards away anymore, so as to keep them whole and as much as I love stamps, I love cards more and ideally with beautiful stamps on them! I still have those old cards that miss a corner!

I love sending cards to people, trying to make them happy! I make an effort with every card I send, recently almost all have gone out with first-day postmarks as an extra and I agonize over every card I send. However, no matter how much I try sometimes it is really hard to find the right card. Sometimes the sending seems more important to me than the receiving. I like to spread joy.

One of my dreams is to have a written, stamped and postmarked postcard from every country in the world, but I tell myself “dream on”, I am not putting enough effort into that, I am afraid. Still, it is a nice dream.

The fact that I now get mail almost every single day got me hooked. And many cards are really outstandingly beautiful and some are real works of art where everything is perfect: view, stamp, deco, the words, …

Thank you so much to everyone who made me happy and who will do so in future.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love to read and write (but cards are all I write these days), I am what I call an “indoor astronomer”, meaning I do more reading books and magazines and searching the internet about astronomy, than actually going out to look through a telescope (which is a fantastic thing to do though!), I collect elongated coins and I love to travel, like so many postcrossers do.

In comparison to many others I have not been to all that many countries, but maybe I can expand that list in the future, except that I find it hard to find a travel companion. Those dear to me love the British Isles above all other places, which I do too (Scotland is my absolutely favourite country!), but I would love to see other places too, and going to the British Isles always makes me sad as I know I’ll have to leave again!

So far I have been to: Albania; Belgium; the former Czechoslovakia; the Czech Republic; Denmark; Eire; England; France; Germany; Gibraltar; Greece; Guernsey; Herm; Hungary; Italy; Jersey; Liechtenstein; Luxembourg; the Netherlands; Northern Ireland; Portugal (Madeira); San Marino; Sark; Scotland; Slovakia; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; the USA; the Vatican; the former Yugoslavia and Wales.

The countries I would most love to see are: Chile, Iceland, Andorra; Armenia; Azerbaijan and Georgia as well as Romania. Alderney and the Isle of Man would be super to visit also, I am sure!

My main hobby equally as important to me as Postcrossing is visiting Vienna’s zoo, Schönbrunn, which is the oldest in the world! I have many furry friends there – and I mean FRIENDS. Animals that know me and come up to me, when they see me, like tiger girls Ina and Kyra, tomcat Jerry and Orang utan Sol. I love them dearly.

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

That is my postie hiding inside a mailbox from my advances… haha. Seriously, this is outside Wien’s main post office, where I drop off most of my mail for first day postmarks. The mailbox with legs is from a fantastic advertising campaign by Austrian mail, where this mailbox roams Austria.

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

My favourite postcards are those my family (mother, father, brother and until she died my granny) have sent me, because they absolutely hate to write so they are real signs of love, catering for my addiction.

Other than that my favourite kind of cards are stunningly beautiful landscapes (named nature only!) and (Russian) orthodox churches as well as tigers, that I love soooo much!

Send one postcard every day for a year. Sounds like fun? A group of Postcrossing fans decided to do just this, but to make it a little more interesting they will make a piece of art every day to send through the post over the course of the year!

The project is called Mailart 365 and was started by Andytgeezer from the UK. Andy is into all things mail and was already featured on this blog for his other project, My REAL wall.

But who better to tell you about Mailart 365 than Andy himself? Here’s what he has to share with you about his new project:

"Since taking up Postcrossing 2 years ago, I found that occasionally, I would get some awesome handmade artworks from other members. This sparked my interest in the mailart movement and I’ve since become heavily involved in the global mailart movement, sending and receiving postcard sized artworks.

I realised recently that I send so much of it and get so much fun out of making mailart, that I wanted to challenge myself to a year of mailart, and Mailart365 was born.

I’ve seen many people take on 365 challenges on the internet. The idea of a 365 is that you make something every day for a year and this is often so big a challenge that many people give up. I decided that the best way to keep myself motivated was to invite a few more mailartists to join me, so I blogged about it, not expecting anybody to join in. Today, only 2 months in (we started on December 1st, 2010 so that it wouldn’t be a new years resolution) Mailart365 has 50 members actively posting to the blog at www.mailart365.com.

The blog has room for 100 members in total, and if any postcrossing member wanted to join they’d be more than welcome to start any time, as long as they are committed to producing, on average, 1 piece of mailart a day for a year. It’s easy to apply to join us, just drop into the website at www.mailart365.com and go to the “Get involved” link at the top of the page.

I personally read every application and will email participants with instructions on how to get started and how to post to the blog. Everyone is in charge of posting their own cards onto the site and I’ll email full instructions on signing up.

We’ve formed a lovely vibrant and supportive community of mailartists, sending to each other and outside of the group too. It’s been a really wonderful experience. Many of us are Postcrossing users too, and are overjoyed when we see people that are willing to receive mailart and handmade cards and will usually make postcards that completely fit the profile.

Since discovering mailart, I’ve discovered artistic skills I never thought I had. I work as a science teacher and was always rubbish at art as a school so grew up thinking that was it, I’m a scientist and nothing more. The beauty of mailart though is that nobody judges your artwork against set rules to give you a grade. You are totally free to express yourself, and when it’s sent the person receiving it will appreciate your art. It beats getting a bill in the post any day!

In addition, criticism is very rare in mailart. As a way to learn and build your confidence as an artist it’s perfect!

However, before anyone decides to embark on Mailart365, I have to warn you – It is a tough challenge, I’m already seeing that I have had to sacrifice some other things to make sure I get my daily artwork done, and often find myself up late at night to complete the artwork for the day, but it’s always worth it!"

If you really love mailart, this is your perfect challenge! And even if you don’t plan to participate, don’t forget to check out their website for their work.

Ever received a postcard that you had trouble registering? Perhaps the Postcard ID was hard to read or it was smudged from all the traveling. Perhaps it was wrong or the sender forgot about writing it in the postcard. It happens, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be registered! There are several things you should try do get those postcards registered and Postcrossing can help you – read on.

The following is an excerpt from our FAQ entry What do I do if I receive a postcard without or with the wrong Postcard ID? which summarizes the things you can do in those cases.

"Postcrossing can help you find the Postcrossing ID for your postcard. But first, please consider the following:

1. Make sure that the postcard is an official Postcrossing postcard and not a thank you postcard or a direct swap.
2. You can try to enter the correct Postcard ID many times without consequence. So, why not try a different combination? For instance, sometimes 1's can look like 7's, 3's and 5's can look like 8's, etc. Don’t worry, the Postcrossing system will not let you register a postcard that does not belong to you.
3. If the postcard has information about the sender, you can use those hints to search for the user in our search users page and then contact them by private message.
4. Note that postcards with postcard IDs over one year old cannot be registered. Postcrossing.com does not keep track of which member was assigned a specific Postcrossing ID so submitting an Unknown ID request is not helpful.

If you are still unable to register the postcard, you can submit a Unknown ID request (the link is also on the bottom of the register a postcard page). Fill in as much information as possible even if you are not sure. Sometimes if there is very little information, a description of the postcard can help. Note that the postal cancellation mark often displays the date and postal code/city. The Postcrossing team will try to find it for you using the information you provide, so the more details you submit, the more likely it will be found.

You only need to fill out the Unknown ID request once for each postcard. If you make a mistake, delete the request and enter a new one. It can take several days for a match to be found. Please be patient.

Additionally, if you find the Postcard ID and register the postcard before you receive a response, please delete the request. You can delete any request by clicking the delete button for the request on your received postcards list."

By following all the items above, most postcards with missing or unknown Postcard IDs can be registered. Oh, by the way, to reduce the chances that a postcard that you have sent has these problems, be sure to check out our recommendations on where to write the Postcard ID on postcards. That’s it!

Happy Postcrossing!

By now, many Postcrossing users are familiar with the Singapore Philatelic Museum and its very impressive Chinese New Year exhibitions.

Previous editions such as A rat’s tale, A Cow and Bull Story and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Danger were a big success, and included the participation of your themed postcards.

Next week starts the Year of the Rabbit, and once again, the Singapore Philatelic Museum invites you to take part in this year’s exhibition by sending in your bunny postcards (extra points for bunny stamps!) to:

Apart from being featured in the museum walls, all postcards received until the 15th 22nd of February will receive a thank you card from Mishelle, so don’t forget to include your address!

What are you waiting for? Hop hop! :)

Andy (or Duplevista) is 52 and lives in Southampton in the UK. He is known for being very interested in anything related with buses and is specially keen on squared postcards. Here’s what he has to share with us.

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

I was a member of various postcard e-groups and a Norwegian guy that I swapped with told me about Postcrossing. After just sending officials for a short while I discovered the forum button – then I was really hooked!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I am interested in all forms of public transport, especially buses and spend as much of my spare time visiting places and logging the details of the vehicles seen to record on my database. Strange as it may seem, its a great excuse for visiting new places!

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

The part of the front room that I laughingly call my office, where the majority of my postcard stuff is.

As the post office that I use the most is just a small part of a newsagents, I decided to send a picture of one of the delivery vans to be different.

Where most of my cards and envelopes get posted. It is an older box with GR indicating it was new in the reign of King George VI. Unusual in the fact it is built into a freestanding brick structure.

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

This was sent to me as a RAS by aj-person from Finland. I have developed a great love of Square shaped postcards.

This was given to me by MissMaple after the Art Unlimited meeting when I raided her doubles box!

Have you met any other members in real life?

I am lucky enough to have met quite a few, the first that I met was lovely ElSol from Russia. Since then I have met those at the London Meeting, and the meeting in Alkmaar at Art Unlimited. I have formed a lasting friendship with MissMaple and Thaddee_Calisson especially, amongst many others.