Postcrossing Blog

Remember back in July, when the Singapore Philatelic Museum asked everyone’s collaboration with Harry Potter postcards for their newest thematic exhibition? Mishelle Lim from the museum recently wrote back to let us know the responses to this call for postcards were stunning, and that they’ve received almost 100 beautiful postcards — including hand-made ones and some bearing Harry Potter stamps. Woohoo! Ten points to Gryffindor Postcrossing!

The museum is now busy replying to the submissions, but have sent back some photos of the exhibition which opened last month. Have a look:

Merlin’s beard… that looks amazing! We’re always in awe of SPM’s exhibitions — you can tell they work hard on all the details to really take the experience to the next level.

If you’re in the area or planning to visit Singapore in the next few months, “Collecting Magic: From Stamps to Wands” will be open until June 2017.

Good news, everyone! We’re super excited about this upcoming exhibition curated by the Singapore Philatelic Museum, which features one of our favourite series ever… HARRY POTTER!!

Since the first book came out in 1997, J.K. Rowling's young wizard and his friends have been hugely popular all around the world, influencing a generation of readers. Postal operators have also joined in celebrating the series, which are naturally featured in plenty of stamps as well as postcards and fan art… which is where YOU come in. The SPM is looking for your collections and postcards, to feature on their next exhibition! 😀

If you’re a collector of Harry Potter postcards or postal stationery and would like to showcase your collection in the exhibition, please contact Mishelle (the curator) at SPM179807@gmail.com by August 10th.

But you don’t need to be a collector to participate! As is tradition, the museum is also calling all postcrossers to send in their themed postcards to them. So grab a Harry Potter card and share something with the visitors! For instance, what do you like about the series? Who’s your favourite character, or what’s your favourite scene or quote? Do tell! Here’s the address:

The exhibition is already on display, so this activity is closed.

If your card arrives before August 21st and includes your address, you’ll receive a postcard back! :) Sadly, the reply won’t be a Harry Potter card, due to licensing fees, but the postcards of the museum never disappoint.

The Harry Potter exhibition at the Singapore Philatelic Museum is scheduled to open in November, and stay on until July 2017. Now if only we had a magic spell to teleport us there…

With love from Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang is the name of the most recent exhibition at the Singapore Philatelic Museum. The characters of the comic strip are often portrayed writing letters, so with the new Peanuts movie launch, it seems like a fitting and fun exhibition! They have Snoopy-themed stamps, comic strips and other collectibles on display from all over the world, but they’re still missing one thing… your postcards! :)

Keeping on with the tradition, the museum invites all postcrossers to send in their Peanuts’ themed postcards to:

The exhibition is already on display, so this activity is closed.

Include your favourite quote from a Peanuts character or your thoughts on the comic strip, if you’d like! :)

The exhibition closes at the end of April, and the museum promises to send an exclusive museum Peanuts postcard to anyone who includes their address on the postcard.

The last time we heard from the Little Mail Carriers, they were knee-high in snow in Siberia, but that was a long time ago… We were wondering what they were up to, when we received this exciting report from Chicago! Turns out, they’ve just spent some time with Heather at the fantastic Curt Teich Postcard Archives!

We’ve written about their Greetings from postcards before, so we were curious to see what Little Paulo & Ana would discover “behind the scenes”…

Hi everyone!

In April we traveled to Wauconda, Illinois, in the far northern suburbs of Chicago. There we visited the Lake County Discovery Museum’s Curt Teich Postcard Archives—the world’s largest public collection of postcards! Our first stop was the mailbox located at the end of the drive. It was quite roomy and gave us a chance to stretch after the trip.

First we saw the reading room and library, which is open to the public. We decided to do a little research. Postcards are sleeved before researchers handle them, and we were only given a few at a time to look at. Pencils only for note taking!

Next we were given a behind-the-scenes tour. The core of the archives is from Chicago printer Curt Teich & Co (1898–1978). The Teich Company specialized in printing postcards, and saved copies of everything they printed. During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, it was the world’s largest volume producer of postcards. The archives literally holds millions of postcards from the Teich Company and other publishers.

The postcards are stored in archival boxes in cabinets. There are a lot of cabinets to hold all of the postcards. The archives also has production files that were used to create the postcards. Some contain original photos, notes, artwork and samples of wallpaper, carpet, or products. This client sent a carpet sample to get the colors and pattern just right.

When we were there, postcards from the Detroit Publishing Company were just being entered into the computer database.

Many of the postcards are digitized on a flatbed scanner at the archives and made available online at www.idaillinois.org. While visiting the digitizer, we made some new friends!

Later, we headed over to the museum building to tour the exhibits. We saw what the original off-set press looked like (that’s Curt Teich Sr., company founder, on the right).

We also discovered a “Top Secret” map! Did you know that during the Second World War, the Teich Company had a contract with the United States Army Map Service for printing maps?

There are lots of different types of postcards on exhibit.

It was great to meet the staff and see how the postcards are cared for at a postcard archive. They love postcards!

P.S. May 5–11, 2013 is National Postcard Week in the United States!

What a fantastic trip – sounds like postcard heaven to us! Thank you for showing them around, Heather! :)

Now they’re off to their next destination… the adventure continues!

As some of you already know from previous editions, a new Chinese Year means a new exhibition at the Singaporean Philatelic Museum!

The theme of this year’s exhibition is Snakes and Ladders, and all postcrossers are invited to contribute to it by sending in their snake-themed postcards to:

Singapore Philatelic Museum
23B Coleman Street
Singapore 179807
Singapore

As with the previous exhibitions, the museum will send a postcard back to all of those who include their address!

The exhibitions at the Singapore Philatelic Museum are usually very interactive, and especially attractive to the younger visitors of the museum – so please send a message to the little ones! You can tell them about your favourite snake, or just say hi! Bonus points if you can find stamps with snakes as well!

Here are some photos from this year’s exhibition, which will run until September:

Doesn’t it look neat? You can tell all the effort that goes into making this a great showcase, so if you’re in Singapore, don’t miss it! :)