Postcrossing Blog

Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world

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What if you could send a postcard today, and schedule the date in which it should arrive? Wouldn’t that be handy for birthday postcards and other such messages? Well, there’s a place in the Netherlands where you can do this – and eat cake while doing it too! Your postcards get put on a “date slot” in a giant calendar wall, ready to be mailed when the day comes… it’s genius! :)

We invited Tiny Klever, the owner of this magical postcard-café to tell us more about it. Here’s her story:

“Dude!” the 12-year old boy said to his friend. The friend apparently made some ‘childish’ remark when the two of them were looking for postcards. They were quick to choose, however, and bought five.

“Are they the youngest customers you ever had?” one of my regulars, a 69-year old retired university lecturer drinking his second fat free cappuccino, asked.

“Without parents, definitely.” I said.

Francobolli is a place where you, while drinking coffee or tea, can choose a postcard (we have 300 to 400 different kinds for you to choose from), write it, and have it send on any day you want. The Postcard Café, one of my English guests once called it.

Often children come with their parents and a lot of them already know that when visiting Francobolli they get to choose a card, they may write and send it. To thank grandma for staying over, to congratulate friends with their birthday or to send it to one of their siblings who is not present. As one of the mothers asks her eldest boy when they are having Sunday brunch with us: “Who deserves a postcard today?”

Viggo sending a postcard

(Viggo (on the right) sends a card to his grandparents, thanking them for staying over and letting him eat a lot of junk food.
Photo: Martine de Clercq)

There are students from fraternity houses who spend one afternoon every half-year writing birthday cards to all of their friends. They barely have time to drink their fresh mint tea or eat their sandwich. See them scribbling away, iPad at the ready, discussing which card fits whom, checking addresses and making sure they get the dates right. Because all these cards need to be put in the right slot in the calendar wall, in order for them to be delivered on exactly the right date.

Postcard wall at Francobolli

The calendar wall with written postcards to be delivered. Photo: Elizabeth van Hasselt.

There are so many reasons people send postcards… because a card reminds you of someone, just for the fun of it, to say thank you, to wish someone good night, to remind yourself of the promise you made (quit smoking, have more fun, you name it). A Taiwanese woman came in every day for a few weeks, ordered a latte macchiato and a carrot cake and wrote a postcard (every day!!) to the ex-prime minister of Taiwan, who is currently serving time in jail. She did not know whether her cards would arrive and surely wasn’t expecting an answer to her writings… Intriguing, don’t you think?

So, whenever you are in the neighborhood, come and have a drink. Combine it with one of our delicious home made pies or a freshly made sandwiches and write a card to your loved ones. Or just come to have a look; you’re most welcome!

Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? I mean, just look at that wall!

Francobolli is on Apothekersdijk 38 in Leiden (Netherlands), right by the canal. Next time you’re in town, don’t miss it! :)

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Sometimes we think the Dutchies have all the luck! They have stroopwafles, vla, tulips, scrumptious cheese… and all the best postcard shops, it seems!

We already told you about a few of our favourites, and today we feature another fantastic one: Kaartfanaat!

Kaartfanaat's postcards

Kaartfanaat stocks an impressive range of publishers: from Tushita to Aquarupella, from Inkognito to Kartoenfabriek… including all the variations of “Keep calm and…” you can think of! :)

They heard about Postcrossing from some of their customers, and since they know how we all love our postcards, they’ve decided to generously sponsor this weekend’s giveaway with 5 packs of 10 of their best-selling postcards!

To win one of these fantastic sets, visit Kaartfanaat's website and leave a comment below, telling us which postcard (or series) you liked the best! But be prepared… choosing from so much eye-candy will be a hard task! :)

Good luck! Do check back on this post around this time next week for the winners (randomly picked by Paulo’s number generator).

Kaartfanaat's postcards

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

And the winners, as chosen by Paulo’s random number generator are… lianalaurie, ceruliz, Tsadida, ESD and marciaguedes! Congratulations and thank you everyone for the comments! :)

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Every time we receive one of your lovely friendship stories, we get a huge smile and can’t help but marvel at the power of simple postcards! On today’s post, Nathalie (aka TotosDawn) from the Netherlands tells us how postcards inspired her to travel – and meet her postcard-pals on the other side of the Atlantic!

When I started sending postcards via Postcrossing I never thought that actual friendships could grow and that the people behind the postcards could mean the world to me! But it happened!

On December 22nd 2010 I became a member of Postcrossing. I had heard a lot about the site, and got excited from the first minute I got my first address. I send out 5 postcards and waited behind my computer to see if they already arrived. Finally they started to arrive and I received my first card back!! The person sending this card is JulianChristopher. He sent me a beautiful card of the Sequoia National Park in California. I immediately fell in love with not only sending postcards, but also I wanted to go there because it looked amazing!

TotosDawn first received card

Besides sending the official postcards I started to send more and more private swaps and adding postcards to my favorites. Many cards from Blkbird were (and still are!) in my favorite gallery. She send me a message to ask if we could do a private swap! Of course!! It was difficult for me to choose which one of the beautiful cards of my favorites I wanted… One day, a big surprise was waiting for me when I found the private swap in my mailbox: it was an envelope filled with all the cards I added to my favorites send by her! I was amazed to see how sweet someone completely strange to me could be! We started talking and I fell in love again with the beautiful landscapes on the postcards: Colorado!

Postcards from Blkbird

If before America had never crossed my mind as a holiday destination, now I was checking hotels, flight tickets, rental cars… My love for America only grew the more postcards I got, but it also became more specific. Sequoia National Park, the first card I got, was still in my head and I wanted to see more it. And who better to ask about it than the person who send me my first card? He was so sweet and sent me some more cards and then one thing led to another and we became 'postcard-pals’ and sometimes we spoke on Facebook. I didn’t forget about Colorado either, neither about Blkbird. We kept sending postcards and I fell in love more and more with America.

So when my husband proposed, we didn’t need to think about a honeymoon destination: AMERICA! We planned a roadtrip, crossing all the places I saw on the postcards I loved. But one thing I really wanted to do to was to meet the people who were so sweet to me all this time and had become my friends. I wasn’t sure if they would like to meet me too, I mean, I’m a stranger from another country, who they only knew via Facebook and postcards. But both were really enthusiastic about my plans and we planned the meetings.

Meeting JulianChristopher

First it was JulianChristopher's turn. We planned to see each other in the Sequoia National Park, where else! From the first moment we met I felt so happy and blessed that I had the chance to meet him and his sweet son. I just couldn’t believe that it was real, that it wasn’t a dream. We spend hours hiking and chatting. He could tell us so much about Sequoia, America and so much more. How special to spend time together in the park he showed me for the first time on a postcard as a total stranger!! Time flies and when the moment of saying goodbye came closer I didn’t wanted to say goodbye and felt sad. But no tears when we said goodbye, only a big smile of gratefulness that I could experience this and actually meet the 'stranger-friend from America’.

Meeting JulianChristopher

Meeting Blkbird was just as special as meeting JulianChristopher. Last minute we decided to have dinner the night before we had planned to spend together. We were waiting at the restaurant and she was a bit late, so I was nervous that she wouldn’t come or that she saw us waiting and thought: NO WAY! Nothing of that was true and when we met it was like meeting an old friend after years. No uncomfortable feelings, just chatting, eating, laughing. The restaurant was closing so we needed to go unfortunately but I was more then happy to know that we would meet again the next day.

Meeting Blkbird

We planned to go to the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver and the Dushanbe teahouse in Boulder. We enjoyed her 'guided tour’ and company. It was unbelievable how much we had in common. She could have been my mother or sister or twin. She is so alike me that it almost is scary!! No surprise that we didn’t want to say goodbye, so we sat for hours in the car when we got 'kicked out’ of the teahouse. Just talking and enjoying the company. No wonder that when it was REALLY time to say goodbye we both cried. When we drove away, I felt so sad.

Blkbird and Totosdawn at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre Blkbird and Totosdawn at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre

JulianChristopher and Blkbird both have a special place in my heart. For them I would return to America without a doubt. When I’m writing this, tears are falling down my cheeks. Tears of sadness that I know that I won’t see them for a long time, tears of happiness, that I had the privilege to meet them.

Who could have thought that sending postcards could actually lead to lifelong friendships!

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Remember Art Unlimited, the Dutch postcard publisher with a passion for pictures?

They’re still going strong and their collection keeps getting better and better. Whether you’re into Dutch classics like Dick Bruna or Fiep Westendorp… or grand masters like Monet or Rembrandt… or perhaps you just really like umbrellas, alphabets or parrots? No matter how specific your taste, if it’s art, they probably have it! :)

Art Unlimited postcards

They know postcrossers love their postcards, so they’ve decided to generously sponsor this weekend’s giveaway with 4 packs of 10 postcards each (from the sets below)!

Art Unlimited postcards giveaway

To win one of these sets, visit Art Unlimited’s website and leave a comment below, telling us which postcard (or series) you liked the best! You can use the search box on the sidebar to browse their huge collection by keyword or artist. :)

Check back on this post around this time next week for the winners (randomly picked by Paulo’s number generator).

And the winners, as chosen by Paulo’s random number generator are… Olga_Magda, Galaxa, icamon and kw0815! Congratulations and thank you everyone for the hundreds of comments!

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In theory, we all know what happens when something goes through the mail: it is picked up, put in crates and boxes, gets sorted more or less automatically, and is finally delivered by the hands of the local mail carrier. If you’ve ever seen a mail sorting center before, you know that there are hundreds of meters of conveyor belts involved, and all sorts of complicated sorting machines… but what does it look like from a “parcel’s perspective”? How many people touch it? How long does it sit around just… waiting?

Designer Ruben van der Vleuten wondered about these things, and instead of sitting still, he came up with a simple solution to solve this mistery: a camera, hidden inside a parcel!

From A to B

Inside the parcel there’s also a small Arduino circuit, with a timer which tells the camera to film more when the package is moving, and less when it is stopped. The result is the amazing video below:



Pretty neat, huh? Check out Ruben’s page, to see what the parcel looked like from the inside! :)