Postcrossing Blog

David “the mad postcard collector” from the United Kingdom has amassed over 100,000 postcards for his collection. This 56 year old multilingual Postcrosser is also a world traveler.

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

I have been hooked on collecting postcards since I was a teenager. I joined two postcard-collecting groups within Mensa, one who was already also a Postcrosser, introduced me to Postcrossing, and I have been totally hooked ever since! My wife, Jeannette, keeps telling me off because I spend so much time writing postcards! I have always enjoyed having the postman deliver mail, so Sundays and public holidays are sad because there is no mail. I am so well-known by my local postmen that I even had a postcard addressed simply to 'The mad postcard collector, Felixstowe' delivered to me!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love travelling and have visited more than 70 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. I love music. I learned to play the guitar (but not very well) and wrote my own songs. I even recorded several of my songs, although they are not available commercially. And I love languages too: I studied French, German, Spanish and Latin at school, taught myself Dutch, Italian, Russian and several other languages; I’m learning Japanese at evening classes too. So my hobbies of travel, languages and postcards are all related.

This is a picture of me playing my guitar and 'performing’ at my 50th birthday party!

This picture, taken two years ago, shows me when I changed a small amount of money ($100) at a bank in Uzbekistan.

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

One picture shows Bent Hill Post Office, Felixstowe. It’s a short walk from where I live. I buy most of my postcards there and all of my stamps, so I’m their favourite customer! The other picture, which is not so clear, is a scanned copy of a picture taken for a newspaper in 2006; it shows me with a few of my postcards and with some of the crates in which I store my collection.

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

I have received nearly 3000 official postcards through Postcrossing, many more through swaps, Round Robins etc. I cannot single out one postcard as so many are my favourites!

Before joining Postcrossing, Yvonne from Cape Coral, Florida, USA, had never sent or received a postcard. Now, she has over 1400 in her collection.

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

I had heard about Postcrossing from a forum post on Bookcrossing.com. I had visited the front page of the website several times without joining. Since, at the time, I had never sent or received a postcard in my entire life, I wondered who still sent postcards? Apparently the answer is me! I was hooked by about the 15th postcard I ever sent through Postcrossing. Finland, Germany, Brazil, New Zealand, Portugal, and Japan were all very foreign countries to me and I was so excited to be able to exchange postcards with people who lived there. The fact is that 1,400 postcards later, I am still excited to send and receive postcards to and from the common-to-Postcrossing but foreign-to-me countries.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I do enjoy reading quite a bit particularly mystery/thriller type books set in the area where I live. There is a very successful author. Randy Wayne White, that writes specifically about Southwest Florida and many others who set their books in Florida like Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiaasen, Jonathon King, Harlan Coben, Laurence Shames, and James O. Born.

I also enjoy nature photography and concentrate my efforts on the huge variety of birds that call South Florida home either year round, during migration, or during the winter. I also have a weakness for Reality TV shows that involve contests (for example, Survivor, Project Runway, or Top Chef). Here is one of my favorite photos.

After joining Postcrossing I realized that postal stamps and cancellation marks are very unique things. I got my own Mailer’s Postmark Permit so that I can cancel my own mail.

(although I live in they city of Cape Coral, we do not have a Postmaster; as such, my postmark is issued by Fort Myers which is the city that manages our mail)

Lastly, I enjoy volunteering my time. As many of you might already know, I am part of the Postcrossing Team and most of my volunteer hours are dedicated to them. For a local club, I created a website including content and now maintain it. I also record articles for Wikipedia through the Spoken Wikipedia project. I randomly select articles that interest me. The resulting spoken article can be heard online or downloaded.

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

I have a post office box and have never met the person who delivers my mail to it.

My post office from the outside.

I keep my postcards in plastic tubs sorted by country. When I took this picture I only had two tubs … now I have three almost full ones.

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

You can get an idea of the types of postcards that I like in my favorites list but I cannot really pick just one favorite. There have been so many amazingly kind people who have read my profile and have been able to pick the perfect postcard and pair it with beautiful stamps. I do seem to have a preference for handmade or self-made postcards.

If I must pick one to show and tell, then I will pick the one that combined my love of maps (which predates Postcrossing) and self-made postcards (DE-282950). The person who sent me the postcard is a cartographer and she created a postcard out of a map that she had designed!

This next postcard I love because it combined things I love – cats, computers, and humor. It also happens to be the fifth postcard I ever received from Finland (FI-33265).

Marita had been exchanging postcards for years before joining Postcrossing. She lives in Turku, Finland where she spreads postcard joy among the many mailboxes in the city.

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

I think my story is a rather common one. I saw an article about some Internet-based hobbies in a magazine years ago and as I have been exchanging postcards with my friends abroad for many years, I decided to take a closer look at the site. The rest is history. The fact that I can surprise someone on the other side of the world just by sending a card is awesome. And of course this is a perfect way to see the beauty of the world.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Besides postcards I have also been collecting stamps for several years. One of my dearest hobbies has been pen palling, which has been a way to get to know the world. I also love learning languages and recently I have become very fond of cross stitching. Oh, and I am a huge sports, and especially ice hockey fan, so I enjoy going to games or watching sports on TV.

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

Here you can see the front of the main post office in Turku although I usually spread my cards among mailboxes around town while I am on the move.. :)

My postcard collection has grown to such extent that I have cards in many albums and boxes around my flat.

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

I can not really name any favorite received cards as I have tons of them. And, on the other hand, all cards, especially official cards, are special to me in different ways. But here are couple of which have something extra in them.

This one came from a pen friend of mine whom I knew before joining Postcrossing. You can just imagine what a lovely surprise to receive on official card from her.

This one is an official card from a Postcrosser whom I have gotten to know from the Postcrossing forum. As I know many languages, she had asked her international co-workers to write a sentence in their own language on the card.

Ingrid from Iran makes pottery but this hobby has been superseded by Postcrossing and new collecting activities introduced to her by Postcrossing.

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

One day when I was searching the Internet and I found Bookcrossing. I wasn’t that hopeful to find any book in my second home town, Tabriz, so that I could take part in Bookcrossing. I was a bit sad but then I saw the Postcrossing label there and I was curious to see what it meant and if it would be something suitable for me!?!?

It was definitely created for me! This was the beginning of my very beloved new hobby in September 2005. I had already been collecting postcards since my childhood. From that time until my late twenties I was only collecting real vintage cards from around the year 1900 as well as cards from France (my favorite country) and later from Hannover, Hamburg, and Iran! I’ve still in my collection the very first card I ever bought – bought when I was only 10 years old. That first card is from Hameln. Perhaps you know the fairy tale of the famous rattenfaenger?!

Later I moved to Iran and every 3–4 years when I came back with my children for holidays to Germany, I started to buy cards from everywhere we were going for sightseeing. I did the same in Iran! And I even collected all the cards during 34 years which I got from abroad from my friends and relatives. So I already had a good collection when I started with Postcrossing!!!

Since this time I have found so many very nice friends all around the world! I have even taken part in several meetups in Germany, Austria and Finland! And, yes, we are a Postcrossing family: ipuenktchen, I_am_from_hanover, yashila_81, ANITA_2004. And, recently – BREAKING NEWS – yashila_81 got married and his wife for sure is a Postcrosser… hehehe… lili_6789!!! But this is not that Postcrossing marriage as they have known each other for a long time before Paulo had this great idea of Postcrossing. In the end, both are interested in postcards!!!

I have also gotten some of my students involved and addicted…

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I always have my camera with me and adore taking photos. I have been doing so since my last year of high school when I won my first camera in a lottery of a youth magazine. A quite new hobby is that I started a blog for traveling toys called POSSY and CROSSY, a playmo couple: ipuenktchenworld.blogger.de. The blog has nice pictures of Iran as these traveling toys are going with me everywhere! Their god aunt Egni from Switzerland came up with these great nicknames for them.

Also, since 1998 I got involved again with pottery (which I started when I still lived in Germany) but shame on me … Postcrossing is taking up all of my time and I find less time for pottery. But I’m still trying to take part in Iranian pottery biennials and other exhibitions. Here you can have a look at a small homepage: home.feierabend.com/sofalin. I’m also a member of East-Azerbaijan’s Pottery Friends Association.

And please not to be forgotten – traveling is one of my main hobbies!!!

There are other collections I’ve started via Postcrossing: The Little Prince books in different languages – just now I got my 37th version.

Lastly, I also I started a collection of fridge magnets!!!

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

A pic of the Iranian mailboxes which you can find everywhere; but using these is not as common as in other countries. People mostly prefer to mail their stuff at the main post office. It takes me 45 minutes to reach it!!! Here you may have a look at our new mailbox. We changed it recently.

And I finally got a pic of our mailman…

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

Oh, what a difficult question!!! Please let me think about it …

No, it’s impossible to decide as I have thousands and thousands of BEAUTIFUL and INTERESTING postcards!!! The card that touched me most was perhaps the first folded panorama card I had ever seen. It is from New Zealand and was a thank you card from nzmum2000! It was sooo impressive with a beautiful nature view in a large size!!!

Otherwise I have cork postcards, a wooden postcard, even a card with a real leaf from a tree in China! Recently I received from dear isagv the most funny card I ever had: there is a Santa Claus grabbing an Easter Bunny out of his sack and the Easter Bunny has a birthday cake in his paws and there is written “Merry Christmas, Happy Easter and Happy Birthday”! *LOL* But it’s really impossible for me to decide which one is my most favorite card!

By the way, the reason I’m really happy for this hobby: it is for people of any age – I just got an official card from a 71 year old Postcrosser and her husband who is 84. I hope to be able to do the same in future as well!

Anita, a world traveler, joined Postcrossing at the recommendation of a pen pal. She has over thirteen thousand postcards in her collection.

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

Because she knew how much I love postcards, my dear pen friend Aase from Denmark told me about Postcrossing in the summer of 2006. So I thought to myself “why not, let’s try it” – and after I found my first postcards in my mailbox it happened to me: I got addicted to Postcrossing.

I have met so many nice people via Postcrossing but also via private swaps and some of them in real life – robin67 and oldieoma from Vienna, Mozartkugel from Salzburg, ipuenktchen from Iran, Karmi from Slovenia, MARCILIA from Madeira/Portugal, Ziah from Mauritius etc.

Honeybee and ipuenktchen


Graz meetup: ipuenktchen, oldieoma and honeybee


Graz meetup: robin67 and honeybee


Salzburg meetup: mozartkugel, ipuenktchen, oldieoma and honeybee


Vienna meetup: oldieoma, honeybee and robin67


honeybee and robin67

Each time I see a postcard stand I have to stop and to look; so my family and friends have to have good nerves and have to be very patient with me.

I think Postcrossing is such a wonderful and peaceful hobby. A Postcrossing friend from Portugal told me once that he want to suggest me for the Nobel Prize for Peace ;) because I helped people from Israel and Iran to exchange postcards (they both sent them to me and I passed them on). There is no postal exchange between them and some other countries of our earth. So I try to help my Postcrossing friends from time to time to realize their postcard-dreams into countries they never would be able to send a card.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love reading and writing so I am very happy to work for a book publishing house here in Graz.

I also enjoy traveling very much and I have visited many countries: Norway & Svalbard, Finland, UK, Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, France, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Hungary, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Jordan, Canada (Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), USA (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Washington State, Oregon, California), Africa (Egypt, Morocco, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe). My next journeys will lead me to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and in summer to Iceland (if the volcano let us go…), Faeroe Islands and Greenland.

Other hobbies: I am fond of playing the keyboard, singing, taking pictures and hiking.

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

Honeybee postman

Honeybee postoffice

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

In my collection I have 13,626 postcards and I love each one of them. I received my first card when I was three years old. I got it from my uncle, who died very young, so it is a wonderful reminder of him. My parents kept this card and all the others which arrived for me until I was ten. Then they asked me if I wanted to collect them and from then my postcard collection grew each year.

Of course there are some favourites – as I love map-cards very much and city views for example. You can visit my map-card collections – Europe, the Americas, Pacific Rim and Asia.