Postcrossing Blog

Have we mentioned how much we enjoy seeing postcrossers getting creative with their hobbies? A few years ago, we wrote about a Postcrossing-sourced quilt and also showed some beautiful knitted and stitched postcards on our Instagram. Today we have another Postcrossing-inspired project to share!

Marina (aka 167marina) is a postcrosser and a knitter from the Tombov region in Russia. She tells us that her small town of Rasskazovo is often described as the “capital of knitting”, because most people like knitting there. It seemed natural to combine the two hobbies somehow… so one day, Marina decided to create a special scarf with yarn sent to her by other postcrossers from all over the world. She called it the “Scarf of Friendship” and posted the request on her profile. Soon enough, colourful bits of yarn started arriving through the mail, along with her postcards…

And voilà! Right now, the scarf has the very impressive length of 2 meters, and features yarn from 23 countries! It’s still a work in progress though, as Marina will keep knitting it till the end of the year — so if you’d like to participate, send her a message. :)

Here is her dad, modelling this awe-inspiring project:

Isn’t it wonderful how random strings of yarn from all over the world can be connected into a beautiful scarf? Come to think of it, this sentence sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it? I guess we’re just fans of connecting things, be it through postcards or yarn! 😊

Well done, Marina — we look forward to seeing the end result!

Many of you might not remember we used to have polls on the site, a looooong time ago. The last time we ran a poll on Postcrossing was back in 2011… and we seem to have forgotten all about them. Paulo stumbled on the code for polls recently and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it still works! So we decided to run a poll about something that has been intriguing us for a while: people’s preferences on the stamp types and how they adhere to postcards. Are self-adhesive stamps (that you peel off a sheet) better than stamps on gummed paper (that you lick)? Does it even matter?

But first, a bit of postal history: can you name the first stamp ever made? And who was its creator?

If your answer was Penny Black and Sir Rowland Hill, you’d be correct on all counts! In its 1837 pamphlet, Sir Rowland Hill called for “low and uniform rates” according to weight (rather than distance) and proposed the concept of stamps: a piece of paper “covered at the back with a glutinous wash”. The first gums were called cement and consisted of a mixture of potato starch, wheat starch and acacia gum. The idea “stuck”, and quickly spread from the UK to the rest of the world.

In 1964, 124 years after the release of the Penny Black, the first self-adhesive stamp was created by an unlikely country… Sierra Leone! That’s right — this African nation was the first one to give it a try, followed by a Christmas stamp from the USA ten years later… and many other countries after that.

If you’re curious to learn more about these themes, check out the Wikipedia page for Postage Stamp gum.

So back to our poll — 8495 postcrossers responded to it over the past week, and these were the results:

Looks like things are more or less evenly divided! Though a large number of postcrossers doesn’t seem to have a preference, from those that do prefer a type of stamps, the choice of the majority seems to be self-adhesive stamps. That surprised me, as I expected postal lovers to prefer the traditional ones… but I can definitely understand that licking might not be for everyone and adhesive stamps can be more practical.

What about you? Which camp are you on, and why?

And last but not least, running a poll was fun! If you have ideas of other interesting polls that we could make, please share them in the comments. We’ll try not to let another 6 years go by until we run the next poll! 😅

Welcome to July! To enter our anniversary month on a celebratory note, we’re starting it with a great giveaway sponsored by Natuurlijkefoto.nl — a friendly website that is perfect for postcrossers who love nature! :)

Run by professional photographer Arnold Voordewind, Natuurlijkefoto specialises in nature photos, including animals and landscapes, with special emphasis on the Dutch ones. His photos are stunning, so it’s no surprise that the postcards are such high quality and so sought after!

Natuurlijkefoto is offering 3 sets of postcards to 3 lucky postcrossers! Here is the 3rd prize, with 10 postcards:

The 2nd prize consists of all those postcards above, plus these 10 below…

And last but not least, the huge 1st prize winner will get aaaaaall those postcards above, plus these ones as well:

Fantastic, right? For a chance to win one of these sets of postcards, visit Natuurlijkefoto.nl's website and leave a comment below, telling us which series of postcards is your favourite! From animals to mailboxes, boats to lighthouses, we’re sure there’s something you’ll find exciting there!

Good luck everyone! Check back on this post next saturday for the winners (randomly picked by Paulo’s number generator, like always).

PS – Until July 8th, Natuurlijkefoto is also offering a 20% discount on all orders above €20. Use the discount code “weekendgiveaway” during checkout to claim that offer.

The Letter Writers Alliance turned 10 years this week, and we’ve been extremely remiss in not mentioning it on the blog before. So today we’re setting this straight and letting you all know about the best letter writing community out there!

Started in June 2007 by Kathy and Donovan, the Letter Writers Alliance is a wonderful project dedicated to maintaining the art of letter writing. Membership for life costs just $5, and gives you access to the many activities they have, as well as to the member-only section of their shop.

I’ve been a card carrying member for over 5 years now, and besides enjoying the posts on the LWA blog and mailart inspiration on Instagram, there are two things they organise that I’m particularly fond of: the penpal exchange and the book club.

The penpal exchange is what it says on the tin: you sign up for a new penpal, tell them a bit about yourself, and some days or weeks later, they match you with someone they think you’ll enjoy exchanging letters with. The difference is that all matches are done by hand, as Kathy carefully chooses who your next penpal is going to be. The results are usually brilliant!

The book club also works really well. Every quarter they pick a new book related to mail, letters or other postal topics, which is then read by everyone and discussed live in video and chat. The discussion is always lively, and I’ve found some really interesting books this way.

They also keep a very interesting blog on all sort of postal-related subjects, offer free downloads and stock their shop with carefully designed postal items, such as writing paper, rubber stamps… and even pigeons you can send your friends by mail to surprise them!

It’s an inspiring project with strong values — one that we admire and often recommend when we notice postcrossers are into letter writing. So if you like letters as much as postcards, you should definitely check it out! 😊

Happy 10th anniversary Letter Writers Alliance, and congratulations Donovan and Kathy!

If you’re anything like me, you cannot bear the thought of throwing stamps away — not even used ones. Luckily, there are many organizations out there that collect them to finance good causes or bring awareness to important issues. Today we’re choosing to highlight one of them that was brought to our attention by Charlotte (aka maxcat1) from the USA.

The students at Foxborough Regional Charter School in Massachusetts have a longterm project called the “Holocaust Stamp Project”, through which they are attempting to collect 11 million cancelled postage stamps. You can probably guess why such a big number, but we’ll let them explain in their own words:

Each stamp that is collected symbolizes one wasted life, “thrown away” as having no value, much the same way as an envelope bearing a cancelled stamp postage stamp is tossed in the trash.

Begun in 2009, the Holocaust Stamps Project is a component of community service learning (CSL), at Foxborough Regional Charter School. It is a unique educational initiative that provides opportunities for students to gain a deeper understanding of how important it is to demonstrate acceptance, tolerance, and respect for diversity in their own daily lives.

The goal is to collect 11,000,000 postage stamps as a way to symbolically honor every victim of the Holocaust. Students and community volunteers trim and count the thousands of stamps that arrive daily from across the country and the world. The wide range of themes depicted – people, world history, places, flora and fauna, inventions, ideas, and values – leads to discussions about what makes our diverse world so special.

Eleven million is an unfathomable number.

According to the last update from May 2nd 2017, over 9 million stamps have already been collected, so they’re well on their way to reaching the goal they’ve set.

Over the years, classes have been using the stamps to craft meticulous collages showcasing certain aspects of the holocaust. The resulting pieces of art are a thoughtful reflection of the lessons learned from this dark period of humanity’s history, from the viewpoint of the students.