Postcrossing Blog

Andy (or Duplevista) is 52 and lives in Southampton in the UK. He is known for being very interested in anything related with buses and is specially keen on squared postcards. Here’s what he has to share with us.

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

I was a member of various postcard e-groups and a Norwegian guy that I swapped with told me about Postcrossing. After just sending officials for a short while I discovered the forum button – then I was really hooked!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I am interested in all forms of public transport, especially buses and spend as much of my spare time visiting places and logging the details of the vehicles seen to record on my database. Strange as it may seem, its a great excuse for visiting new places!

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

The part of the front room that I laughingly call my office, where the majority of my postcard stuff is.

As the post office that I use the most is just a small part of a newsagents, I decided to send a picture of one of the delivery vans to be different.

Where most of my cards and envelopes get posted. It is an older box with GR indicating it was new in the reign of King George VI. Unusual in the fact it is built into a freestanding brick structure.

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

This was sent to me as a RAS by aj-person from Finland. I have developed a great love of Square shaped postcards.

This was given to me by MissMaple after the Art Unlimited meeting when I raided her doubles box!

Have you met any other members in real life?

I am lucky enough to have met quite a few, the first that I met was lovely ElSol from Russia. Since then I have met those at the London Meeting, and the meeting in Alkmaar at Art Unlimited. I have formed a lasting friendship with MissMaple and Thaddee_Calisson especially, amongst many others.

Yvonne is a 64 y.o. grandmother in the U.S.A. and goes by FloridaGirl in Postcrossing. She has a soft spot for postcards with maps and nature, as you can easily see in her favourites. Here’s what she has to share with us.

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

I had saw that someone mentioned swapping postcards in another site. I went searching for where a site would be to do that. I found Postcrossing. What got me hooked was not just the official part of Postcrossing but also the Postcrossing forum when I discovered private swaps and saw that there were so many wonderful cards of places I’ve never seen. The people in the forum were so nice and I started to make friends. Also the cards spurred me to research places that were on the cards. I couldn’t just look at a photo and find it interesting, if it wasn’t clear to me what or where it was, I wanted to find out.
I do continue to do the official Postcrossing exchanges.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love maps, rocks, bookmarks and for years I made quilts but I had to stop quilting. That’s when Postcrossing started. I have maps from many places in the US and some other countries (road maps) and have 5 world Atlases.

I also have a collection of rocks that my parents, other family members or I have found; and, some that I bought, for example, petrified wood from Brasil.

My children have been giving me bookmarks for years, since I read so much. I’ve gotten beautiful bookmarks from other postcrossers.

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

That is me at my mailbox in front of my house.

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

My favorite of the animals are wild cats. This is a great card for the tenderness shown by the lions and the fact that I received it as a get well card from a postcrosser who I’ve gotten to know.

I’ve come to love the beauty of the Julian Alps in Slovenia. This just one that showns how beautiful they are.

The Japanese have a beautiful way of showing off their cherry trees.

This one shows olive trees with wild poppies blooming around them. It is one that I think is especially pretty.

Claudia is a creative Postcrosser from Italy, she even illustrates her own postcards. Read more about her in the following Spotlight interview!

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

I discovered Postcrossing reading a newspaper – I immediately thought that it would be a great chance for me to experience the world outside my window in Naples in a brand new way: not just by seeing pictures of new places but also by discovering aspects of people’s lives and cultures through senders’ words. I also loved the idea of establishing random contacts, as this allows the whole Postcrossing adventure to be free from any boundaries of age, color, culture or religion.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I have many hobbies, but I should admit that I am not dedicated to all of them. I am dedicated in playing with my pets, reading books, watching movies and TV series, drawing, sun tanning and eating chocolate [I’m definitely too active in that :)] Then I sometimes love creative activities such as decoupage, scrapbooking, making beaded jewelry, and sewing bags for my niece or Halloween costumes for my pets. I would love to learn more about cooking and baking, especially foreign recipes.

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

My youngest cat Pepe hidden in the mailbox, ready to scare the mailman to death :)

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

I have received many beautiful postcards and I love them all for different reasons, but I do actually have my top three:

I generally love picturesque street view postcards, as they let me dream about how great it would be to walk those different corners of the earth.

This postcard litterally left me breathless, because when I was 4 or 5 years old my dad built a wooden model of this same ship for me! Now I know it’s the “Endevour”, the vessel in which Captain Cook first sighted New Zeland in 1769.

With this third postcard I want to thank every single postcrosser who accepted my invitation to swap one or more of my favourite postcards with me. It’s amazing to discover that there are people around the world ready to do their utmost to find a postcard you like, just to make you happy.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Receiving a postcard is always a big joy for me, but what I love most is to make my own postcards. Ever since I joined Postcrossing, I created my handmade postcards, because I wanted to share more of myself than just the few lines you can write on a postcard…to give them a “personal touch”. So, inspired by my beloved pets (1 mini-pinscher dog, 4 cats and 4 parrots), sketch by sketch, my handdrawn characters – the “Nextlola’s Zoo” – materialized in front of me… hoping to bring a smile to the receivers’ faces. I was hugely surprised by the extent of appreciation from other postcrossers, and because of the enthusiastic support of some of them (very special to me), I decided to try to turn my hobby into a job by printing my own postcards and selling them on my website.

Meet Iris from Hong Kong. Teacher and student who loves theater, books and much more!

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

A few years ago, I was looking to start new hobbies, which ended up being old hobbies revisited! I recalled my love of writing letters as a child and started seeking for penpals. While I was browsing the penpal site Interpals, I came across a profile that mentioned Postcrossing and naturally, I was intrigued. I visited the site and in a blink of an eye, I was hooked. I collected a few postcards as a child and used them to decorate my room, but I didn’t take collecting seriously until I came across Postcrossing. To this day, I don’t consider myself a collector. The person who’s sending it and the message on the back can sometimes mean more than the card alone. Blank, pristine, unwritten cards, even if they’re pretty or rare, are great, but what makes them truly unique are the words written on them and the sentiment they express, or the moment in time they capture.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

One of the greatest loves in my life, apart from my obsession with snail mail, is theatre. I have worked in a backstage capacity since I was 13 years old. Again, it was an instant passion; I loved it from the first moment I stepped on my secondary school stage. I really love the idea of helping craft a piece of art without being seen. In a way, a play or a musical is like a postcard. It has a time and a place. The character of a postcard comes from the inscription, and the setting is in the picture. Both tell a story.

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

When I started postcrossing, I put my postcards in photo albums and stored them on the shelf.

But I realised I don’t like this, as I can’t touch or hold my postcards properly this way. I am just beginning to file and store them in a box.

I also have a CD stand by the side of my table which holds my most recently received postcards, which I haven’t filed away yet.

I am seriously considering investing in a proper rotating postcard rack, like the ones you find standing outside souvenir shops, so that I can browse through my cards at any time!

Here is my mailbox where I receive my mail and a photo of me posting some postcards.

Here is my local post office

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

This is the most difficult question to answer, since there are too many to choose from. I really love this Mona Lisa light switch cover card from Roelof in The Netherlands because it describes me to a T – classic with a touch of irreverence; serious and funny at the same time. I had such a good laugh when I received this card, and it still makes me smile.

Have you met any other members in real life?

We recently held the first ever Hong Kong Postcrossing meeting in August 2010, and eight of us met. It was really nice to meet other postcrossers in Hong Kong! Other postcrossers I have met are kasi0408 and Markus_from_Finland when I was in London in 2008. I was also very lucky to meet Ana and Paulo when they were visiting Hong Kong a few years ago!

Is there anything that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about education and literacy. I really believe that a formal education should not simply focus on forming the students’ ability to pass exams, but to equip them with life skills. I am a tertiary level teacher and I volunteer with the local chapter of Bring Me a Book, an international charity that focuses on making good books accessible to underprivileged children and encourages the strengthening of parent-child bonds through reading aloud. As a child, I read voraciously by myself and with my mother. I know this really helped form my character, as well as giving me a lifelong hobby and skill.

Karoly is an Hungarian living in Serbia and is admittedly addicted to collecting. He is 59 and during his life he started collections of a lot of different items, but he admits that postcards are his favorite.

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

I was just surfing the Internet and I found Postcrossing. It seemed to be very interesting and I gave it a try – I immediately got hooked!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Oh yes, a lot! I like nature walking, fishing, cycling, reading, visit museums, photography and, of course, collecting – and I collect everything! Some of the things I collect are: postcards, stamps, paper money, coins, beer/wine labels, books, pins, etc. My wife isn’t very happy about me collecting all this.

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

On the photo below you can be see my mailbox in the background – that’s where I receive all my postcards. And in front is my daughter (she married last 10th of october!) and my granddaughter.

And below you can see part of my postcard collection – I have now about 10000 postcards.

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

They are all so beautiful! I love that they don’t bring just everyday pictures but rather uncommon sights – special ways of seeing the world! Here are some of my favourites: