Postcrossing Blog

Today is a good day — it’s the day we get to announce that these vibrant and playful new stamps from Poland are scheduled to make their debut later this month:

Hurray! 🎉 Designer Agata Tobolczyk (who has also designed the previous Polish Postcrossing stamp) came up with this happy duo of stamps to brighten any postcard. They come in sheets of 12 stamps, and 144,000 units of each stamp are being printed in Poland by the Polish Security Printing Works company. The stamps will be available in post offices and also on the Polish Post online shop on the issue date, along with a fancy First Day Cover and its happy postmark.

The stamp launch date is October 26, 2024, and the community is organizing a meetup in Warsaw, where the special postmark will be available at the main post office. If you’re going to be around Warsaw towards the end of the month, consider joining the community in welcoming this new stamp!

At last! The day has finally come in which we see kiwis “flying” to deliver all those postcards from New Zealand. Look at them!

Aren’t these just gorgeous? You can’t really see it in these pictures, but the birds have a fancy overgloss coating! 😍 And the maxicards… perfection! It’s so exciting to see photos of the stamp, and not just a digital version. It’s real!

The reception from the community to this new Postcrossing themed stamp has been brilliant — not just from New Zealanders, but also from many postcrossers in other countries, who have pre-ordered some on the NZ Post shop for their upcoming visits or just to keep. We know postal workers have been super busy packaging those orders, and they should be popping up in everyone’s mailboxes very soon. If you manage to grab hold of some, or if one day you receive one of these on a postcard, do share some photos on the forum or on social media and tag us — we’d love to see them!

This coming Sunday, postcrossers in Auckland are meeting at the Wattle Downs café to celebrate the stamp launch and make use of their cute new maxicards. If you’re in the area, come join them for some friendly chat and postcard writing!

Kiwis are curious birds… native to New Zealand (which is also called Aotearoa in the Māori language), they are nocturnal land birds. They have feathers that look like hair, strong legs and no tail, and they cannot fly. So how would a kiwi deliver your postcards? 🤔 Why, with balloons, of course!

Meet the cute new Postcrossing stamp from New Zealand, coming out this August! Isn’t it brilliant? Plus, this stamp issue includes a really nice maxicard too:

Designed by Sumin Ha for NZ Post, the stamp is being printed in Napier by Brebner Print, using lithography. You cannot see it in these images, but the stamp features an overgloss coating over the kiwi itself, which will make it extra shiny and special… Be still, my little heart! 😍

The stamp will be issued on August 7th, so from that day onwards, local postcrossers will be able to send their postcards out into the world with these cute stamps! It’s possible to pre-order the stamp already on NZ Post’s online shop, and they also deliver internationally for all collectors out there. Those orders will be shipped on the issuing date.

We’re really excited about this and can’t wait to see these kiwis make their way to thousands of mailboxes worldwide!

Hurray! The German Postcrossing stamp is out and about, and the first postcards sent with it must already be arriving to the nearest mailboxes this week, and making its way around the world to many others out there. It’s been a long while since we attended a stamp launch event, so we wanted to show you a little bit of what happened in this latest one, which took place in Berlin on October 7.

The Museum of Communications Berlin very generously offered to host the day’s events, which were organized in two parts: one formal event, and the more informal meetup of postcrossers.

For the formal part, representatives of the Ministry of Finance, Deutsche Post, the Bundesdruckerei (the company responsible for printing ID cards, money and stamps in Germany), as well as philatelic associations and Postcrossing gathered in a room of the museum. Some nice speeches were made by the different parts, including an introduction to the history of postcards by the Museum Director Mrs Anja Schaluschke, as well as a speech by state secretary Dr Carsten Pillath, who also distributed special stamp albums. Although designer Greta Gröttrup couldn’t attend the event, she prepared this cute video which sheds some light on her creative process:

After some pictures, it was time for the meetup to begin!

The Lichthof (the circular hall of the Museum of Communications) was set up with tables and chairs, and postcrossers started pouring in. Some took a guided tour of the museum, while others sat down to chat and write some postcards together. We had the chance to talk with most participants for a bit, and it was just lovely to meet different people and hear their Postcrossing stories.

There was even time for a group picture, taken by Sabine (aka kroete68)!

You can see more nice pictures of the event at the Museum’s Twitter page or on the respective meetup forum topic.

It was such a fun afternoon, with so many postcards being written and sent! Deutsche Post’s special post office was super busy stamping our cards and even ran out of the new stamps. 😅

A big thanks to the group of postcrossers who put such a nice event together, to those who came and made it brilliant, and to the Museum of Communications Berlin as well, for hosting all of us on this lovely day. Hurray!

We got some special commemorative folded cards featuring the new stamp, its cancellation marks and two detachable postcards created by the stamp designer — and have a few to give away! For a chance to win one, leave a comment below with some ideas for fun meetings and stamp celebrations. The giveaway will run for a week, and Paulo’s random number generator will select ten winners by this time next Sunday. Good luck!

The much-awaited day is here, and the new German Postcrossing stamp is finally out! YAY! 🎉 This is a very happy day for the community, who have been persistently asking for this stamp for many years. As Germany is home to the most active country by number of postcards sent, this is a well-deserved honor and a special milestone, which makes us incredibly proud. Our heartfelt thank you to the Federal Ministry of Finance, for deeming Postcrossing and this community worthy of this recognition, and for working with us throughout this whole process.

We know some of you in Germany have already received your pre-orders to Deutsche Post’s philatelic department…

… and we assume the rest of German postcrossers will march to the nearest post office today, to proudly ask for the Postcrossing stamp — like we are going to do as soon as this post is out. The print run for the stamp is 3.5 million stamps, so at the current rate of sending from Germany, these should last for 3 to 4 years a year or so… so there will be plenty to go around. Given how fleißig our German members are at writing postcards, we’re sure it’s just a matter of time until everyone else in Postcrossing receives a postcard with the new stamp… so keep an eye on your mailbox for this little gem! 😍

The stamp is available here, but sadly, Deutsche Post’s online shop does not ship their products abroad… so while it is theoretically possible to order the stamp from abroad through the phone or email, it is both cumbersome and costly. If you’d like to order some stamps, we recommend arranging a swap with a postcrosser on the forum instead.

Tomorrow (October 7) is a day for celebrations, and we’re getting together with a group of enthusiastic postcrossers for a big meetup, kindly hosted by the Museum of Communications, in Berlin. The Little Mail Carriers have been there before, and can confirm it’s a really neat museum for a visit… there are so many treasures to discover! If you’re in town, please do consider joining us — everyone is welcome!