We live in a touristy area, where it isn’t hard to find postcards featuring the local beaches… but it can be quite a challenge to find cards of anything else. This is where postcard boxes come in! These days, it’s easy to find cheap sets of 50 or 100 postcards on all sorts of themes, from children’s books to architecture, food or movies — so now and then, we check out what there is out there and get some diversity into our postcard drawer. It’s been a few years since our last post on the topic… so time to catch up with new things being published in recent years!
But first, a small disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links. This means that if you buy these postcards on Amazon, Postcrossing will receive a small commission for each sale (at no extra cost to you). Feel free to look for these postcard sets and boxes on your favourite bookstores though — supporting local businesses is the best! 💪
So without further ado, here are some of the postcard boxes that caught our eye!
- Wild Animals of the World: 50 Postcards
- Eric Carle’s Box of Wonders: 100 Colorful Postcards
- Sibley Birds of Land, Sea, and Sky: 50 Postcards
- The Disney Animation Postcard Box: 100 Collectible Postcards
- Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy Box of Postcards: 100 Colorful Postcards
- Studio Ghibli: 100 Collectible Postcards
- The Wild Cards
- Dungeons & Dragons 100 Postcards: Archival Art from Every Edition
- Women in Art: 100 Postcards
- Botanicals: 100 Postcards from the Archives of the New York Botanical Garden
- Garden Fresh, 100 Postcards: A Medley of Vegetables and Fruit
- Clark Little: The Art of Waves Postcards: 50 Postcards
Of all of these, I confess I’m most excited about Richard Scarry’s “Busy Busy Box of Postcards”! My brother and I used to spend hours and hours going through his books, noticing all the details and looking for Lowly Worm… These cards bring back so many good memories, and I can’t wait to send some of them to my niece, and other small postcrossers!
If you’re looking for even more postcard sets, check out this forum wiki where postcrossers have been compiling a list of them. And if you know of other postcard boxes that are not mentioned there, feel free to add them!
33 comments so far
Oh, I have the same with the Richard Scarry books! Youth sentiment!
Let me check if it's in a store in my town and otherwise maybe I'm going to buy it at Amazon. Thanks for sharing, greetings from Anke
I am very indecisive right now! I want most of it... my wallet does not. 😂
'round these parts, it's hard to find tourist cards! I keep buying the same set to satisfy the "picture of your hometown" requests.
Didn't know you can get PC boxes! Great idea. I am finding cards at a local gas station at a reasonable priced.
Lately I have had to buy most of my postcards from Amazon because I don’t live in a high tourist area and it’s getting harder to find interesting postcards. My local museum sells a few, and I buy pre-stamped cards from the post office
If Postcrossing benefits at all from my card purchases then I will be happy to buy more from Amazon. Is there a way to know how to tag Postcrossing when I buy them?
Thanks
Thanks for this post and the links! I now know what to get my son for either his birthday or Christmas. The Disney box.
My local thrift store always has loads of postcards, so I drop in a few times a week. They are just 5¢ a piece.
These are some great choices! Some others I have used are Game of Thrones, Earth+Space, Urban Sketching, Vintage DC Comics, This is My Bookstore, Bibliophile, Star Wars, Pixar, and The Art of Instruction (Vintage cards). I think these are all available on Amazon. You have to be careful in some choices because the back sides may be annotated, reducing your work space for address, comments, stickers, or washi tape.
I have a whole separate list of postcard publishers, many foreign, that I also use, along with Zazzle and Etsy vendors.
Ever try to find some unusual requests? I have been keeping a list of requested cards, and find I still am missing:
1. Art Deco
2. Gardens
3. Manga/Anime
4. Movie posters
5. Photos or scenes showing hobbies, like hiking, sewing, gardening, fitness
6. Amusement parks
One last comment - what do you feel about AI cards?
A good idea - but I like having my very own collection of postcards with motifs that you can't get everywhere. As the "papersisters" (a special German postcard shop) describe it: "You know you're a postcrosser when a postcard rack attracts you like a strong magnet"
I have been eagerly awaiting another blog post on this topic! I'm fortunate that I have a few of these postcard boxes already, but several listed here are new to me, and they have now gone straight into my Amazon wish list! :)
I have bought a few similar boxes, and you should be careful when purchasing them. In a lot of them, the postcards are smaller than standard size, enough so that (in the US at least), they require additional postage. If you're Postcrossing on a budget, you don't want to waste money on cards that will be more expensive to send.
Some I like that you didn't mention are:
1) Eric Carle's Box of Wonders: 50 designs that repeat for 100 postcards. Very colorful. Childlike pictures, drawn.
https://amzn.to/4b7SI51
2) Blue Cats 2023 Edition. 67 cards, colorful, drawn. Very popular Blue Cats designs by Rina Zeniuk.
https://mymagicard.com/en/shop/blue-cats~14
3) Wine Dogs of North American Wineries: 50 different postcards, colorful photos, with many different dog breeds and their environments.
https://www.abebooks.com/9781921336096/Wine-Dogs-50-Postcards-Craig-1921336099/plp
Note: Be careful you don't buy the book--only the one that says "postcard set.": ISBN 10: 1921336099 ISBN 13: 9781921336096
Publisher: Giant Dog P/L, 2008
4) Halsman: 25 different postcards, black-and-white photos, of celebrities in movies & TV
https://amzn.to/3xmDhIk
5) Still Life with Bricks: 50 photo postcards repeated for 100 postcards, colorful, with Legos
https://amzn.to/3Xs2HPg
6) Harry Potter: 100 different photo images from the movies, colorful.
https://amzn.to/3VL4PjO
7) Earth + Space: 100 different photo cards of planets, galaxies, etc. Very colorful & artistic.
https://amzn.to/4b57Pfo
8) The Night Sky: 50 different postcards, small, many drawn & a few photos, of more obscure astronomy objects. Very historical, not as popular as the NASA type.
https://amzn.to/3XmbbYc
9) Dog Box: 100 postcards by 10 artists: 100 different postcards, 10 each by 10 artists, drawn.
https://amzn.to/3XqxOuH
Thank you for this latest list of great ideas! Appreciate it!
Great blog post! Thank you.
Here's another fun set for bibliophiles:
https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/this-is-my-bookstore-postcard-box
@schubieknits Just use the links on the blog post! Even if you don't end up buying those exact postcard boxes, any purchase you make will probably still be counted as a referral. :)
Postcards really provoke creativity and endless possibilities. <3
Nice to learn as in Brazil the offer of local postcards is very much restricted.
I recently discovered an amazing corner of Amazon. Search a phrase like “collage art aesthetic” and you will find an entire world of 100 card packs in a a zillion different styles that are sold with the intention to create collage wall art. They are all postcard size, but their backs are blank. I’ve gotten a few packs and the card stock is high quality and the printing looks great.
Thank you for these ideas!
I have the Eric Carle ones and they are so adorable!
I buy usually a box at the time, what is available at the bookstore, because I use also separate postcards, then I have most of the time you favorite cards at home to send to you!...Jippie...
"The Wild Cards" with illustrations by Jackie Morris, from MacFarlane & Morris' beautiful books "The Lost Words" and "The Lost Spells" are a great favourite with my grandchildren, and I have sent many of them to PostCrossers too.
Other boxes I have (am am well through using) include: "100 Flowers" (botanical paintings and drawings from the Royal Horticultural Society); "Cyclepedia" (100 bicycles!); The Science Museum (from London) collection of 50 postcards; and "Postcards from Penguin" (100 book covers).
In any boxed set you won't like all the designs, but these are all good quality postcards and very good value when I got them.
Nice sturdy boxes too!
The Dungeons and Dragons box is especially fun because the United States Postal Service is releasing a set of D&D stamps this year. I'm not a huge fan of the art style (it's very retro) but it will be fun to match them up with the stamp. Even better if I can get the special cancellation for a little DIY maxi-card! I have the wave box as well and it's very beautiful. Fun roundup. :)
Nice Post, I have some Postcard Boxes: House Industries, Orchids, Urban Sketching,Harry Potter,London Underground, The Design Museum, Ladybird, Earth+Space and I love them all good quality and very well made.
I love these!! I would probably hoard to myself though that's my trouble haha
You can often find some interesting cards in vintage or on occasion in charity shops. In Nottingham "Hopkinsons" is my favourite you have to dig through to find ones that are still blank.
Before I even got to the ending of your post, those Richard Scarry ones jumped out to me. I had never seen them. Ordering now. Thanks for bringing them to our attention!
I have two from B&N of different brands and I wanted to say which I recommend/don't recommend.
The "vintage postcards" tins by Cavallini are awesome! Perfect quality and really really nice designs (I have a cacti/succulent one to represent TX). Example:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cavallini-vintage-postcard-set-nyc-cavallini/1139920809?ean=9781574890136
However, I'm not a huge fan of the "This is my bookstore" postcard box by Chronicle books. They're really stiff (seem permanently arched) and just photos smacked onto card stock. Some haven't even been bothered to correct the photo orientation to the postcard, leaving big white bars on the sides.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/this-is-my-bookstore-chronicle-books/1132830672?ean=9781452177939
I still send some out, great for bibliophiles like myself, but overall a little disappointed w the box. Maybe i'm too picky
Couldn’t wait to go and order the Richard Scarry ones! You should receive a commission 😁
Cierto, una gran idea, pero las mas demandadas, por lo menos en mi caso, son de Harry Potter, trenes y coches, de las demás me voy saliendo, algunas en mi pueblo o cercanos, vivo en zona turística, o compro en web de "La Postalera" tienen maravillas y estan a buen precio.
Thank you for the suggestion in the post...but I think I am one of the few people who has never bought on Amazon and I still don't! I find the postcards at painting exhibitions or make them myself. Thanks in any case. :)
I prefer cards from other countries that I cannot buy myself (and never ever amazon). I like the surprise. It is boring to receive the same postcardboxcards from different countries.
I recently picked up the wonderful "Ex Libris" postcard set (50 postcards, all unique--no repeats). They show bookplates from around the world and over a few hundred years. Beautiful!
Confusingly, there's another postcard set called "Ex Libris" which is the illustrations that accompanied book reviews by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times. I also have that one ;)
And I also recently bought the Cat Box --10 artists, 100 drawings of cats, no repeats.
Years ago I bought a box of postcards of Roz Chast cartoons. Lesson learned: don't go too niche with cards, it takes forever to get through the box.
I have bought The Wild Cards and they are sooo beautiful! I can only recommend buying them :) Some of them will definitely decorate our walls as well!
I was only talking about Richard Scarry with my sister last night (she doesn't remember his stuff at all). The 'problem' with this list is I want so many for myself!
I have the Sibley birds box and it's lovely. It even has tabs to seperate songbirds from owls, etc. I now use it to seperate and organize cards recieved too!
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