Postcrossing Blog

Twelve years ago today, Postcrossing was opened to the whole world… so today it’s our own Postcrossingversary! 🎉 Hurray!

Connecting the world might not be an easy job, but we firmly believe it is an evermore important one. We’re thankful to every single one of our members who believe in this idea too, looking beyond borders, religions and politics to simply connect with other human beings out there, one postcard at a time.

And to make this special day even more special, we have great news! Indonesia Post is releasing 3 new Postcrossing-themed stamps today! Here they are, in all their colourful glory:

Pretty cool, right? Meetups are being organised around Indonesia to celebrate the event this weekend — if you’re the area, head over to the forum for more information. We look forward to seeing these pretty stamps on postcards from Indonesia!

And now, it’s time to enjoy this milestone — do join us in this celebration, send a postcard (or 12!) and have a slice of cake! 🎂 Happy birthday Postcrossingversary, Postcrossing!

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!

We promised to show you some highlights from our birthday party map entries, but picking just a few turned out to be a monumental task, leading to long stretches of ooooh’ing and aaaah’ing in the middle of hours of browsing. We loved so many of them, you guys really went out of your way!

Below are some that have drawn our attention. You can click on each image to be taken to the respective entry on the map.

A lot of meetups took place around the birthday, like these ones in Indonesia and France:

And a lot of cooking and baking as well! Our mouths watered with all the commemorative cakes, cookies and sandwiches…

Schools doing Postcrossing will always have a special place in our hearts, so we enjoyed browsing all the class photos and videos!

Some of you decided to use your crafty skills to create Postcrossing-themed objects and displays… such talent and imagination!

Many of you also included your little ones in the celebrations…

… or your pets…

… or even the mail carrier! :)

Such heartfelt displays of love and affection really touched us… We hope we will all still be around in 10 years time, sending postcards and showering each others mailboxes with love!

Postcrossing’s birthday month may now be over, but what a great month it was!

With almost 2000 entries, the birthday party map got pins in all continents (apart from Antarctica)! Sometimes though, even better than the photos and videos are the attached comments… everyone shared a kind word or experience, and we cherish each and every single one of them.

The submissions were closed yesterday, but you will still be able to browse the many lovely photos and videos from around the world in the coming months. At midnight UTC, these were the 10 entries with more votes*, which will receive some nice postcard sets, scratch maps and MOO postcards:

“Happy Birthday, Postcrossing, and to the next ten years!”

Linabella (from Germany)

“Happy birthday, postcrossing! We’ve known you for only three years, but you gave me the whole world! I communicate with people from different corners of the earth and it’s very interesting! I receive postcards from different points of the planet, I expanded my horizons and knowledge of the basics of the English language, I found a lot of friends – and it’s all thanks to you! If it were not for you my life would be boring, filled with gray weekdays…
I wish you prosperity and long life, my favorite postcrossing!
Happy birthday!”

Shchuchka (from Belarus)

“Happy 10th birthday Postcrossing! Here I made a cake with 10 postcrossing-coloured candles to celebrate ^^ I cut my finger and burned my thumb in the process but it was totally worth it. Postcrossing is an amazing project and a great part of who I am, so thank you and I’m looking forward for the next 10 years!”

hankadl (from Czech Republic)

“Happy birthday POSTCROSSING !
10 more years… and we’ll see what to wish ;-)
A really nice way to discover people and countries, thank you for all these meetings !
BON ANNIVERSAIRE !!!!”

jean-mimi (from France)

“Tadaaaa… Happy Anniversaryyyyyy. I’m so excited making my wall of fame from the very phenomenal cards of the year. LOL. Wishing for the great more years coming in the future and a lot of nice postcards. Cheers and spread smiles through postcards. Yeayyyyyy ^_^”

connz (from Indonesia)

Happy Birthday Postcrossing :)
We are from UTAR Postcrossing, Malaysia :)"

ming_zhe0423 (from Malaysia)

Postcrossing, you are the best! Happy birthday!"

Ereona (from Russia)

“Happy 10th Birthday wishes Postcrossing from us all here at Kereru Children’s Learning Centre in New Zealand.
We love getting cards in our mailbox and have made Continent boxes to store them all. :) We love learning all about the world around us and every day we 'read’ our cards. Thank you :) What a great learning experience you have given us. we can’t wait to see many more cards in the next 10 years!
One of our biggest joys is to choose which postcard to send to everyone. Once we learn what they would like, all the cards are put on the table and we select the perfect card to send. We hope you all enjoy our choices we have made. :)”

Kereru (from New Zealand)

“Happy birthday Postcrossing and all of the postcrosser around the world.”

dwicahyaningtyas (from Indonesia)

“♪Happy \(^o^)/ ┌ii​ii┐ \(^o^)/ ​Birthday♪
Thank you for sharing 10 years of postcards, surprises, creativity, smiles and friendships with the world.
I hope to enjoy Postcrossing for many years to come!
Hartelijk Gefeliciteerd, allemaal!
Happy Birthday, everybody!
Big hug from Barbara”

Ejderha (from Netherlands)

So much talent, so many smiles!! A big thank you to everyone who posted, favorited and shared, for making this party such a big success. Our gratitude to MOO as well, for sponsoring this giveaway with their lovely postcards.

We had so much fun going through all your entries that we’re planning to highlight more of them throughout next week… stay tuned!

* Naturally, we won’t count our own entries! :)

Ten years ago today, Paulo was sitting on the balcony of his room in the north of Portugal, laptop balanced on his legs. University exams were over, graduation was weeks away and his internship was going well… and yet, he wasn’t thinking about work or school. He had been toying with his new “postcard crossing project” for a few months now, and time had come to open it to the world.

So he did, changing settings on a command line, and refreshing the page a few lot of times, waiting for his friends and curious strangers to sign up. He didn’t have to wait long though, as word quickly spread from his friends to their friends, and then to the whole world.

Ten years is a long time, and it feels like it should be enough time for us to come to terms with how much Postcrossing has grown and the impact it has had on thousands of lives… and yet, it’s still hard to believe somedays. On Postcrossing’s 10th birthday, we’re thankful to each and every one of you, for believing in this crazy idea, for giving it a try, for coming along for the ride, sending postcards and spreading the word. The project wouldn’t have made this far without you!

Ok, enough with the teary-eyed speeches… it’s time for that party! :) Postcrossing’s birthday map is filling up rather quickly with all your lovely photos and videos! From Argentina to Western Sahara, postcrossers are joining the birthday celebrations, bringing with them cookies, cakes and sandwiches, balloons, mailboxes, songs… and lots and lots of postcards and smiles!

Meanwhile, we’ve been busy putting together 10 prizes for the most voted entries, including postcard sets, scratch maps and MOO postcards!

So don’t delay your participation — you only have until the end of the month to upload, share and favourite the photos and videos on the map. Good luck everyone! And happy birthday Postcrossing!