Postcrossing Blog

Hurray! July 14th is Postcrossing’s anniversary and we couldn’t be happier! Eleven years of connecting the world, one postcard at a time… feels great!

Postcrossing is not just a platform or a bit of code on a server. What makes this project great is definitely its community… which means YOU! Every single one of you, that perhaps looked at this idea with suspicion in the beginning but decided to jump in anyway and give it a go. All of you who ensure the world’s mailboxes are filled with smiles and kind words. Those of you who help each other in the forum, who organize and attend meetups, who send us tips and ideas, who send thousands of postcards to lovely ladies on their birthday. We’re thankful for your trust, support and enthusiasm in the past 11 years. Long live Postcrossing!

A couple of postal operators neatly lined up their Postcrossing-themed stamp launches to mark the occasion, so today, Poland and Guernsey see new stamps come to life!

Polish Post drew inspiration on the theme of traveling through postcards, and re-imagined a “postcrossers’ suitcase”… which naturally has a mailbox on the side!

To celebrate the stamp launch, Polish Post is holding several events in Wrocław. Among the activities, there will be a free tour of the Post and Telecommunication Museum in Wrocław, a competition with some prizes and, of course, the opportunity to buy the new stamp and even receive a special cancellation mark.

Today is also the day two new stamps from Guernsey Post make their debut! International postage is being updated, and the stamps (for Europe and Rest of the World) reflect this change. Guernsey Post’s new stamps were drawn by Sue Hamon and aim to share the island’s rich flora and fauna with the world through the postcards they’ll be traveling in.

Guernsey Post is also launching a set of related products along with the stamp, on their online shop, including first day covers and maxicards.

So, happy birthday Postcrossing! Now it’s time to blow those candles and grab a piece of cake while we write some postcards — do join us! :)

PS – Speaking of stamps, the German Postcrossing community has been trying for years to convince their Finance Ministry that a Postcrossing-themed stamp would be a good idea… with little success so far. As Germany is the country with most postcards sent in the project, we think they deserve it. So if you have an extra card, give them a hand in turning this dream into reality!

It’s been a while since we’ve had a giveaway here on the blog, so we thought it was time to bring them back! Partnering with us this month is Kaartfanaat, a lovely Dutch postcard shop we’ve featured here on the blog some years ago.

They’re still going strong and have since expanded their range to feature not just great postcards, but also boxed sets, books and other gifts. Lots of series will be familiar to postcrossers, from Fotofolio's black and white cards featuring famous people to Inkognito's humourous ones… there’s something for everyone!

On this month’s giveaway, they have generously offered to equip 5 lucky postcrossers with sets of 15 postcards of their choice. As a bonus, one of the winners will also be able to pick one item from the Book & Gifts section of their site! :)

To win one of these fantastic prizes, browse Kaartfanaat's website and leave a comment below, telling us which postcard, series or gift item you have your eye on!

Good luck, everyone! Check back on this post around this time next week for the winners, which will be randomly picked by Paulo's number generator, as usual.

PS – For the duration of this giveaway, Kaartfanaat is also offering a 10% discount on all orders from €10 (excl. shipping). Use the code postcard during checkout!

Some time ago, we received a nice email from Peter (aka p22earl), asking whether we’d be interested in knowing how he had been using Postcrossing to learn about music from all over the world from other postcrossers. Well, we love music and we love fun projects that members run using the site… so yes, please! :)

Here he is, explaining his postal/musical experiment:

I came across Postcrossing by chance at home one evening. I was reading about Bookcrossing which I have done a bit of in the past when I stumbled upon Postcrossing. As a lover of snail mail I was instantly hooked on the idea and signed up to begin sending postcards.

I read some other users accounts and got a sense of how to set out my own ‘who i am and what i want’ profile. I thought about the kinds of postcards I’d like to receive and additionally I considered what I would like to perhaps learn from fellow Postcrossers. I have quite a lot of music on CD and cassette tapes. I don’t collect vinyl. My radio is hardly ever off. I decided that I really wanted to learn more about music from other parts of the world and that Postcrossing would be a good way to help me learn about it.

My profile reads… ‘I like to learn about different types of music from all over the world. Please tell me about your favourite music from your home country / city / town.’ And on postcards I sent out across the skies I wrote words to a similar affect. Often I would tell people what I was listening to that day or about my favourite bands (Breed 77, Beach House Joanna Gruesome, etcetera…).

The responses I had from Postcrossers did not disappoint. There were those who wrote about musical instruments they play, or what genre of music they enjoy. One from Netherlands wrote about how they could hear children going from door to door singing songs and collecting candy as part of traditional Saint Martin’s Day celebrations (11 November). And I started to learn as I had hoped about lots of genres of music I had never heard of (or considered) such as Medieval Rock (Saltatio Mortis), Mandopop (JJ Lin), Slovakian punk (Horkýže Slíže), Daina Baltic Folk (Alina Orlova), Russian Folk (Пелагея).

And as time went on I started to think about what I would do with my new found knowledge. Eventually I decided that I would make a mixtape of various Postcrossers’ favourites. Once I reached 100 postcards I selected one from each postcrosser who wrote to me or replied about music. I chose to not include bands whose music is familiar to me such as Abba or the Bee Gees – not just because I don’t like them but my aim with the project was to discover music that was new to me. And importantly I wanted that music to be an international portrait of Postcrossing members’ diverse tastes.

And as I used to do so much in my teens, I taped the music onto cassette. This is the only physical copy of the postcrossing playlist. I painted it with a small (inaccurate) map of the world on one side and on the reverse is a postcard including a real stamp. The mixtape exists as two playlists on Spotify. One side (playlist 1) featuring music from postcards I received and the second side (playlist 2) featuring songs from replies to postcards I sent. Side 1 plays 47 minutes, and side 2 runs for 43 minutes.

You can find the Postcrossing playlists on Spotify by searching ‘Postcrossing Mixtape’. My Spotify username is p22earl.

I hope you enjoy learning about some new music from around the world too. Let me know your favourite song from the playlist. And if you send me a postcard make sure to tell me about the music from your home country / city / town.

Happy Postcrossing

Peace, post & music

Peter

PS – Since not everyone has access to Spotify, here’s the track listing for Peter’s mixtape:

Side 1:

Side 2:

PPS – Notice something inside Peter’s mailbox on the first picture? Here’s a better photo:

Yup! Peter has little people who live inside his mailbox and take care of all the mail! He says he put them there to surprise his wife for her birthday, and they ended up staying… How nice is that? 😀

As some of you can probably tell by his username, Eels (aka Qi) is a music fan. He also likes Wes Anderson's movies… and surprisingly, we share a favourite book from a Portuguese author, which he first learned about through Postcrossing! Come discover which, on his spotlight interview!

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

I used to send postcards to my close friends and even myself during my travels, and I happened to know Postcrossing when I was browsing the website Douban many years ago. There’s a Postcrossing group there and I was fascinated by the amazing project after I read its brief introduction, so I immediately opened an account to start my Postcrossing journey. :)

Since then, I’ve been active also in the forum and ‘met’ lots of nice friends these years. The most amazing thing is I have a penpal who used to be a postcrosser. Though she is no longer active in Postcrossing due to her busy work, we still keep in touch and send postcards and letters to each other from time to time. Without Postcrossing, I wouldn’t have such a important far-away friend, even though I never saw her.

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

It’s really hard to choose only one favorite card from my received cards…

I am a big fan of James Dean and I really love all his movies, so I started to collect postcards of him. Till now I have over 100 James Dean postcards.

I also love Japanese Gotochi cards and started to collect them… though collecting them all seems like an impossible task. A few weeks ago I received my favorite Gotochi featuring Momotaro — what a lovely card!

And here’s a card with Fernando Pessoa, a famous Portuguese poet. I got to know him through a Postcrossing friend’s introduction, and I’ve enjoyed discovering his work. I have finished reading the Chinese version of 'The book of disquiet’ and I’m reading the English version now.

Finally a postcard of the Pilgrimage Church of St John of Nepomuk, a UNESCO site in Czech Republic with beautiful architecture. I want to visit it if I have the chance!

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

To read each postcrossers’ profile, choose the perfect card (at least I think), choose stamps, decorate and write on it. Also upload the picture before I send out the card. All these processes are interesting and I enjoy them.

I love receiving surprises as well, not just the postcard but also the message on the back side. The magic charm of Postcrossing is you never know what will arrive to you everyday, and I love sending and receiving surprises. :)

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

This is my local post office…

… and the postbox from which my cards are usually sent:

Here is my mailbox, where postcards arrive:

After registering, they get put in a box, waiting to be sorted…

… and this is the shelf where they end up, after being sorted and stored.

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes! I attended a small Postcrossing meetup in Shanghai two years ago:

That’s me on the front right side, and my wife Yaya on the front left!

Had I joined Postcrossing earlier, I might have had the chance to see Paulo and Ana, as they were in a meetup in Shanghai in 2008.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I really love listening music in my daily life, and started to collect vinyl records about a year ago. I am enthusiastic about watching movies — my favorite director is Wes Anderson. I also love jogging and want to finish a marathon one day in the future. Besides that, I started to learn yoga few months ago, a quite interesting exercise which makes me feel peaceful and relaxed.

Postcrossing widened my eyes, there are sooooo many wonderful places/countries I want to visit! My wife and I have visited several European countries: France, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands or Spain. And Iceland is the place I most want to visit in the future.

We know many Postcrossers take their yearly break in the upcoming weeks to relax or explore new places.

So here’s your yearly reminder: if you know you’ll be away from your home or school address for a while, we recommend that you switch your account to inactive a few weeks in advance — you can do that easily just by editing your account settings. This will tell Postcrossing not to give your address to any other members while you are away. You can still send some postcards if you’d like, but you won’t be sent any until you’re ready to receive them.

When you’re back, all you need to do is to switch your account back to active and you’ll be in business again! Rest assured, all your due postcards will then be sent your way.

Oh, and don’t forget to get some local postcards, so you can share your holiday memories and recommendations on the cards you send!

Enjoy your holidays! :)