Postcrossing Blog

Have you heard of Owney the dog? This dog was a postal sensation during the late 1880s to the 1890s. Of course, he’s still popular today but not as popular as he did during the climax of his career.

One day in 1888, a stray dog wandered into a post office in Albany, New York. The postal workers took the dog in for the night and the poor, little fella fell asleep on a pile of sacks which were used to carry mail. During the next days, the postal workers decided to keep him and gave him his very own mail sack to sleep on.

Some accounts claim that Owney became so familiar with the scent and texture of the mail sacks that he followed one wherever it was taken. Another account says that Owney’s sack was needed one day and Owney followed its scent as it was brought into a postal train. Whatever the real story was, Owney’s career as the Post Office’s mascot was launched through his love of mail sacks.

Owney would follow the mail sacks onto mail wagons, mail trains, and even mail steamships! Soon, the wonder dog was traveling all over the United States and the world!

In 1897, Owney died of a peaceful death. Through the various fundraisings performed by his friends and fans, his body was preserved and immortalized as an inspirational display – first at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the United States Post Office (USPS) and then at the Smithsonian Institution.

If you’d like to see more of Owney, he’s quite popular on Flickr. There are a few postcards with Owney’s image on them and these can be new ideas for your next postcard mailing!

Hola Postcrossers! We hope you had a wonderful Easter! We found another interesting topic about postcards: Kaj Stenvall and his famous Duck.

Lots of Postcrossers have been emailing us about this amazing and creative Finnish painter and his wonderful masterpieces that frequently feature a duck in many settings and characterizations.

Stenvall’s paintings are now being used in postcards everywhere. So you either have seen some of these postcards lately but didn’t know who the painter was or you’re familiar with the painter but do not have any idea why he paints the way he does.

If you don’t know anything about this painter at all, read along because we’re sure you’ll find him and his paintings very interesting. Who knows, you’ll even want a postcard with his famous duck paintings.

It all started in 1989 when Stenvall made a few paintings featuring a duck that looks very similar to Walt Disney’s Donald Duck. However, his duck’s appearance has increasingly moved away from the Disney character’s guise through the years. The duck’s gender, age, and skin color have all shifted from one painting to another. The Duck has slowly become its own character.

According to Stenvall himself, the Duck is a symbol of humanity. Contrary to popular belief, the Duck isn’t Stenvall’s alter ego nor does it serve any purpose in delivering some kind of message from Stenvall. According to Stenvall’s official website,

It’s simply a jumping off point into the multidimensional world of Stenvall’s art, to draw the viewer deep inside his paintings and then, to step aside.

Isn’t that genius thinking?

What’s even better is that the duck makes viewers think about its purpose and imagine things that Stenvall himself wouldn’t even think about his own paintings.

Challenge yourself and your postcard recipients by sending them one of Stenvall’s paintings. Let’s see what stories you guys can come up with just by looking at the duck and its surroundings.

If you want to see more of Stenvall’s art, visit his website here.

We aren’t sure if these postcards are available online but we found a couple at this website: Art Unlimited.

If any of you have any idea where your fellow Postcrossers can get one online, please comment on this blog post and leave a link! Thanks a lot!

Till next time!

Do you consider yourself a postcard collector?

If you think you’re serious about collecting postcards, think again! Introducing… Mary L. Martin, Postcard Collector to the Extreme!

This amazing lady from Perryville, Maryland, USA has a postcard collection that numbers not only by the hundreds, definitely not by the thousands, but by the millions!

Started forty years ago, her huge collection features postcards from the past and present, from celebrities and ordinary people, from every city, every town, and every country, and just about anything you can think of.

Here’s a two-minute video of Mary and her Perryville postcard shop as featured in WBAL’s Rob’s Attic by Rob Roblin:

If you want to check out more about Mary L. Martin and her postcard collection, visit her official site at http://www.marylmartin.com. Millions of postcards are also for sale in this website.

Mary L. Martin Postcards is the largest postcard shop in the whole world. If you and your Postcrossing buddies live near or around Perryville, Maryland, this shop is a good place for a meetup. If you guys are from somewhere else, this destination is an interesting idea for a Postcrossing field-trip!

Every single day Postcrossing lights up thousands of smiles across the world, literally making it a happier place. We are very proud of that and so should you! And today, Postcrossing brings to you an initiative that allows you to create even more smiles through your postcards. Interested? Read on.

On the 10th of May it’s International World Lupus Day, which has the goal of bringing more awareness over this chronic disease that affects over 5 million people worldwide. If you don’t know what Lupus is, here’s a quick summary:

Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). Chronic means that the signs and symptoms tend to last longer than six weeks and often for many years. In lupus, something goes wrong with your immune system, which is the part of the body that fights off viruses, bacteria, and germs (“foreign invaders, ” like the flu). Normally our immune system produces proteins called antibodies that protect the body from these invaders. Autoimmune means your immune system cannot tell the difference between these foreign invaders and your body’s healthy tissues (“auto” means “self”) and creates autoantibodies that attack and destroy healthy tissue. These autoantibodies cause inflammation, pain, and damage in various parts of the body.

Lupus occurs nine times more often in women than in men, especially between the ages of 15 and 50, but it can also affect men, children, and teenagers develop it too. To learn more about Lupus, check Wikipedia or the Lupus Foundation of America.

So, how is this related with postcards? The German Lupus Association and Postcrossing have joined efforts around the World Lupus Day, and you can participate too! We call it LupusCrossing – Butterflies are crossing the world and all you have to do is to send a butterfly postcard (butterflies are the Lupus symbol) to the address below to express your support towards Lupus patients on this special day. The goal is to bring worldwide awareness to this problem while at the same time bring smiles to those affected by the disease. You can write on the postcard whatever you want, and you can ask questions about Lupus too.

All received postcards will reach the hands of Lupus patients. In return, the German Lupus Association will send thank you postcards to 3 randomly chosen Postcrossers of each country they receive postcards from so don’t forget to write your address on the card! A photo of the postcards received will appear on their website. Moreover, the German Lupus Association plans to design a roll-up display out of these cards that will be shown throughout the 80 regional groups.

Ready to spark some smiles? Then grab a postcard with a butterfly and send it to:

And don’t forget to check the German Lupus Association website for the progress.

Happy LupusCrossing!

The Postcrossing meetups seem be springing a bit all over the world. These month in addition to the Finnish meetup, there were another another two in Germany: one in Cologne, and another one in Würzburg.

Although smaller, these meetups always include many postcards signed and stamped while visits to local postcards shops to re-stock are also common. The participants in the Würzburg meeting also had the chance to visit the Würzburg Residence (a UNESCO World Heritage site) and the beautiful gardens of the Veitshöchheim castle.

Here are some photos that better describe it: