Postcrossing Blog

Some weeks ago, the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first humans walking on the moon. Reliving the experience of the Apollo 11 mission was an emotional event all around the world, not just for the millions of people who remember watching the live broadcast on TV with bated breath, but also for the younger generations of dreamers that those astronauts have inspired.

As you can imagine, landing on the Sea of Tranquility is a risky adventure, requiring all sorts of preparations. There’s physical and scientific training to go through, and checklists for all sorts of procedures, but there’s also a more down-to-earth side of things, like life insurance. Can you imagine the price of the insurance for such a perilous and unique mission though? Yup, it’s pretty much astronomical! So how were astronauts supposed to make sure their families were looked after in the event they didn’t make it back to Earth?

When faced with this situation, Apollo 11 astronauts Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong came up with a cunning secret plan: postal covers!

They were famous and their autographs were greatly prized, so they decided to sign dozens of special envelopes in advance, featuring space-themed stamps and motives. These were to be hand-cancelled by friends at the post office on the day that they landed on the moon, and later delivered to their families. In case something happened to them, they hoped these autographed covers could be sold to collectors, in order to give their families some financial security.

Thankfully, they all came back safe and sound from this grand adventure, and didn’t need to use the postal covers as insurance. 😅 But it was still a brilliant plan! And as expected, these special philatelic items became collectibles, and are highly sought after by astrophilatelists, the branch of philately that focus on space-themed stamps. They continued to be made by astronauts until the 16th Apollo mission, and you can discover more of them on this page. Neat! 🌔

So many meetings, so little time! We’re way overdue in telling you about all the cool Postcrossing meetups we’ve been hearing from, so here are three recent events that postcrossers have organized and written to us about. We hope they inspire you to join or organize your own local meetup!

Postcrossing Anniversary Meetups in Indonesia 🇮🇩

Last month, the Indonesian community celebrated Postcrossing’s 14th birthday by organizing meetings in 11 different cities around the country — isn’t that awesome?! Look at this cool mashup that they’ve made with photos of all the meetings:

There’s happy people, cake and balloons… looks like a real birthday party! Lots of postcrossers in the cities of Batam, Medan, Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Solo, Surabaya, Malang, Makassar and Tenggarong enjoyed spending time together, talking, snacking and writing postcards, of course! You can see more of their meeting photos on this page.

China Bullet Train Meetup Series 🇨🇳

The idea for this unusual series of meetups came from Bin Xu (aka bishopet) who is a super fan of trains and postcards! To combine the two, he contacted 8 postcrossers from 8 different cities along the China Bullet Train route, in Shenyang, Shandong, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Dongguan and Hong Kong. Meetings were organized in all these cities throughout the month of June, each one with a different postcard featuring the bullet train.

Nizhny Novgorod Postcrossing Meeting 🇷🇺

About three weeks ago, 74 postcrossers from 29 Russian cities got together in Nizhny Novgorod to share their love of postcards with the world! Over the weekend, they wrote and sent almost 2000 postcards — but most importantly, they got the chance meet and get to know each other. Russia is a huge country and for many postcrossers, this was the first chance they got to meet some of the people that they had only previously known online or through postcards. They even had a special postmark made for the event, along with a little mobile post office by Russian Post that allowed everyone to mail their cards immediately. It looks like a lot of fun!

Deers are a symbol of the city of Nizhny Novgorod, and this cute one is the mascot of the local Postcrossing group. These photos are by Anna (aka AnnaRybakova_79), and you can see many more on this page.

That’s all for now! If you’ve been in a nice meetup recently, send us some photos and let us know how it went — we’d love to hear about it. 🙂 And if you’re thinking of joining or organizing a meetup, consider October 1st as a potential date, and join us in celebrating the 150th anniversary of the postcard!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

This month’s prompt was suggested by both Jetske and LenaSophie some time ago on the forum:

So… any good literary tips?

The last book I’ve read is one I’ve read quite a few times, and regularly return to when I’m feeling overwhelmed. It’s a very short read called How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, by Arnold Bennett. Despite being a book from the early 1900s (and thus available for free at Project Gutenberg), its advice still feels very appropriate in the age of digital distractions. I would recommend it to anyone who feels like they are constantly running out of time, for some refreshing perspective.

What about you? What was the last book you’ve read? And would you recommend it? We encourage you to write about it on the postcards you send out this month.

PS – A quick update on our 150 years of postcards party: events are being planned in 12 different countries already, including museum tours and many meetups. Later today we will check our PO box to see if the first postcards for the UPU postcard exhibition have already arrived. We’ll keep you posted! 😊

Ok, so on the last post we’ve unveiled some of our plans for commemorating the 150th anniversary of postcards later this year. These include the 150yearsofpostcards.com website detailing the historical events related to postcards, as well as inviting everyone to celebrate this milestone together on October 1st.

Today we’re putting together one more piece of the puzzle, one in which everyone can participate: a one-of-a-kind postcard exhibition at the Universal Postal Union headquarters, all about our love for postcards!

Your special assignment is to tell the whole world what makes postcards special to you. What is your fondest memory featuring postcards? What do you feel when you open your mailbox and there’s one there waiting for you?

Pour your feelings into a postcard and send it to:

(address removed, as the event happened already)

This should be a perfect match for the Postcrossing community, as we all have strong feelings about postcards and are very familiar with the spike of excitement when we open our mailboxes. 😍

There will be prizes for the nicest postcards and messages, so don’t forget to add your email address to your postcard — make sure you check all the details here. The best part though is that a selection of these postcards will be exhibited at the Universal Postal Union headquarters in Switzerland 🇨🇭, during the month of October!

We’re super excited about this collaboration with the UPU, which is the United Nations specialized agency for the postal sector. They’ve agreed to lend us a wall in their headquarters, and we look forward to covering it with postcards and show everyone just how much postcards mean to all of us.

This exhibition is a pretty big deal, but for it to happen we need postcards… and we’re counting on YOU to participate with the words and images that we’ll be showing in Bern this coming October. Join us in sharing our love for postcards with the whole world!

Yup, you read that correctly: postcards are celebrating their 150th anniversary this year! Hurray!! 🎉

October 1st, 1869 was the day the Austrian Post decided to implement Dr. Emanuel Herrmann’s recommendations for a practical and cheaper means of sending short messages. Up until then, letters were the norm, but they were expensive and filled with formal etiquette, taking some effort to write. So postcards were born to simplify things… and the rest is history.

For some months now, we’ve been busy behind the scenes researching the history of postcards and putting together a special website to commemorate the anniversary of our favorite means of communication, and to encourage the whole world to re-discover the joy that is finding a postcard in a mailbox.

We know that October is still some months away, but a sesquicentennial anniversary is a pretty big deal and it definitely deserves a party — which is where YOU come in!

Your mission, if you wish to accept it, is to plan a meetup with other local postcrossers to celebrate the 150th anniversary of postcards. Meet new friends, make some postal-themed activities, or just send postcards together. It can be as small or as big as you’d like — the important thing is to have fun and celebrate the postcard. This is a birthday party, after all! 😉

If you’ve never organized a meetup before, don’t worry, it’s easy! Reach out to other nearby postcrossers via private message or on the forum, and when you’re more or less set on a plan, make a post about it on the forum (here’s a quick how-to guide to meetups). There are already a few meetings being planned for this special celebration, and we look forward to adding lots more to the events page.

This next part is optional, but in the spirit of connecting the world, it would be super cool if these meetings were connected with other meetings happening simultaneously, or with other postcrossers celebrating the day. If internet is available in the place where you’ll meet, consider livestreaming or reaching out to other meetup hosts in advance, to set up a video chat so everyone can say hi! Let us know what your plans are, and we can help spread the word about it.

Ok, I think this is all for now! We’ve written a bit more about these meetups on this forum post, where you can ask further questions.

Come discover the history of postcards on 150yearsofpostcards.com, and spread the word about this remarkable #150yearsofpostcards anniversary — let’s make it a party that the whole world will remember!