Postcrossing Blog

Good news, everyone! We’ve been biting our tongues and holding our breaths, but now we can finally share the news with you all: there are 3 new Postcrossing-themed stamps coming in the next few months, and they’re all great! 😍

First up, Guernsey! The three colourful stamps feature animal species that can be found on the Bailiwick: the Golden Guernsey Goat, the Chancre Crab and the Herm Puffin, all mailing postcards around the islands on Guernsey’s blue mailboxes. Such a clever way to mix Postcrossing with their own national living treasures!

These will come out on June 10th, and feature a cool easter egg… if you look really closely, you’ll see they’re being mailed to some of us at the Postcrossing team: the UK stamp is heading out to Nicky (aka shanaqui), the European one is coming to Paulo and me, and the Rest of the World goes out to Vicki (aka mundoo) in Australia. Those are fictional addresses, by the way.

They’re coming out on June 10th, ahead of Postcrossing’s birthday, and they’ll be available for pre-order from Guernsey’s online shop from May 27th, along with maxicards and other fun philatelic collectibles.

Next up, Belarus is issuing this fun Happy Postcrossing stamp! Coincidentally, this is another stamp featuring animals mailing postcards around the world, and it will be issued on July 10th.

Belpochta doesn’t have an (international) online shop, but if you’re interested in the stamp you can get in touch with them following the instructions on this page. Turns out, Belpochta does have an international online shop, where they sell stamps and other products — you can find it here. Thank you Lunushka and Capricorn_Belarus for letting us know!

And last but not least, Austria is issuing a Postcrossing-themed stamp in July as well. They chose a more abstract approach to the theme, which aims to represent how the postcard exchanges happen in Postcrossing:

The Austrian stamp will be launched on July 14th, which is Postcrossing’s birthday, but should be available for pre-order on their online shop from July 2nd onwards.

And that’s all the good news for today! We look forward to seeing all these playful stamps in many postcards traveling all around the world, filling their recipients’ mailboxes with color and spreading the word about our beloved hobby. 📮

It’s been 15 years today since Paulo flipped the switch to turn Postcrossing on — 15 years! 🎉 Can you believe that?! We’re a little incredulous ourselves… but immensely happy and grateful for the opportunity to come on this journey that has delivered millions of postcards around the world. Who could have imagined such an unlikely adventure?!

Awhile back, we asked you guys to upload a selfie with your mailbox to our anniversary wall, and almost 1000 of you accepted the challenge and showed us your happy mailboxes. It’s such a joy to browse the gallery now, and see your smiles and the places where all the postcards land! Mailboxes and mail slots seem to come in all shapes, sizes and materials, and quite a few of you even receive your mail directly from your mail carrier’s hands at your doorstep or on your local post office. So much color and diversity of mailboxes and ways of receiving mail!

We wanted to do a little surprise with these nice photos, so we put together a video filled with smiles to share with you all:

Sorry that we couldn’t put all of the photos in without making the video too long — we tried to include as many as we could. You can see all the photos on the 15 Years of Happy Mailboxes page, and the submissions will be open until the end of the month.

A big thank you to every single one of you out there, sending postcards to strangers across the world and helping make this planet a happier place — you are the stars of this celebration! 🤩 Join us in a little celebratory dance and enjoy this special day!

Before I get all weepy, let me just share some more good news: we have been working with Brazil Post on a new Postcrossing-themed stamp that is being released today! It’s a beautiful stamp by São Paulo’s illustrator Daniel Lourenço, showing 2 people connected through postcards. It’s a big, beautiful stamp (click the image to see a bigger version), and we have no doubt Brazilian postcards will look extra nice with it.

We’re so proud of the Postcrossing community in Brazil, whose persistence and dedication to their hobby resulted in this gorgeous stamp coming to life. Sadly, they cannot yet get together to celebrate the stamp launch right now… but there will be an online launch event (on Instagram and Youtube), and we’re certain postcrossers will make up for lost time when it is safe to meet in person again. Enjoy your new stamp, and we look forward to seeing it on many future postcards from Brazil 🇧🇷!

PS – Postcrossers in China 🇨🇳, if you can’t see the video above, try here.

Today is the day the Åland Postcrossing-themed stamp makes its debut! Hurray! 🎉

Lots of postcrossers have made the trip to the archipelago to participate in a large meetup organized by the Finnish Postcrossing Friends Association, taking place to celebrate the stamp launch. If you’re curious to check out the event as it happens, there will be a livestream today (June 7th) at around 2pm Helsinki time (UTC+3), on the Association’s Facebook page.

This is the 392nd stamp issued by Åland Post and the first metallic, heart-shaped Postcrossing stamp ever, and we cannot wait to hold it in our hands!

To commemorate this special occasion, Åland Post has kindly offered to give 7 postcrossers one of these fantastic prizes:

• One Postcrossing stamp sheet of 28 stamps.
• Three Postcrossing first day covers.
• Three Postcrossing maximum cards.

Sounds brilliant, right?

For a chance to grab one of them, all you need to do is to discover something new about the Åland Islands, and leave a comment below to share that fact with the rest of the Postcrossing community. Make it a good one — we want the comments to be filled with interesting facts and bits of history about this place that so few people have heard of!

The comments will be open for one week, and around this time next week, Paulo will run a bit of code that will pick 7 random postcrossers to receive their prizes. We’ll announce them here on this blog post.

Good luck, everyone! :) We hope you enjoy learning more about the Åland Islands, and that a postcard with their shiny new Postcrossing-themed stamp will land on your mailbox very soon.

Hej! Hei!

Good news, everyone! We’re happy to announce that the Åland Islands will be launching a Postcrossing-themed stamp next year! I know your eyes are already drifting to the photo below, so go ahead and have a look:

There are so many cool things about this stamp! First of all, images don’t do justice to its shiny metallic surface, whose colors shift from pink to purple. But there’s also the fact that this is a not a normal stamp… it’s heart-shaped! You can carefully detach the inner perforations and transform the stamp into a heart — how cool is that?!

This special stamp was designed by Åland Post’s own Cecilia Mattsson, and will be issued in June 7th, 2019. To celebrate the occasion, the Finnish Postcrossing Friends Association is timing their annual trip to Åland to coincide with the stamp launch. Keep an eye on their website for more information soon, but you can already expect many interesting activities as per their usual adventures.

We know it’s still a long time for this stamp to be issued, but we’re super excited about it and looking forward to seeing it on many postcards next year! 💜

Good news from Moldova, the most recent country to issue a Postcrossing-themed stamp!

Isn’t it a cute one? We love how the postcards zoom all around the world, taking a happy Moldovan postcrosser with them.

The stamp was drawn by Lilian Iaţco, and 120,000 stamps have been printed, as well as postcards and first-day covers to mark the occasion. Sadly, we believe these will only be available in local post offices for now, as Moldova Post doesn’t have a philatelic online shop yet.

As is becoming a tradition, a meetup is taking place today to celebrate the launch of the stamp and use the cancellation mark made for the occasion. The event will take place in Chisinau’s Central Post Office, which might be familiar to some from last year’s event that brought together Moldovan and Romanian postcrossers.

We look forward to seeing this new stamp make its way around the world on many future postcards!