Postcrossing Blog

Ingrid from Iran makes pottery but this hobby has been superseded by Postcrossing and new collecting activities introduced to her by Postcrossing.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

Vicki (aka Mundoo), a very valued member of the Postcrossing team, has been involved in Postcrossing for over four and half years. She is a self-professed computer geek and enjoys Geocaching and Pathtags.

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

I saw Paulo promote it on bookcrossing.com and wondered what it was about. I was the third Australian to join and loved the international aspect of it. I got hooked when I received my first postcard. It was such a good thing to find in my letterbox instead of a bill. So bright and colourful, so full of good wishes and friendship.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I am a computer geek. Before Internet, (yes there was a time before Internet) I used to operate a BBS (Bulletin Board Service) from my kitchen. In 1988 I was the second female in Australia to be a sysop of a BBS. It was called Computer Connection.

I enjoy geocaching from geocaching.com as it challenges me to find hidden treasure in my surroundings with my GPS and takes me to places of interest and out of my computer chair. I have a collection of pathtags that I collect via pathtags.com, they appeal to me because they are similar to postcards in that they tell a story with just a picture.

I love to do cross-stitch and since getting a digital camera also take heaps of photos of the everyday world around me. I take a lot of sunrise photos which show where I live which is about 20 feet from the water’s edge in the estuary of the longest river in Australia – the Murray River. My house is surrounded by a national park – Coorong National Park – which is a RAMSAR world environment site and I am very interested in the environment and my surroundings. I am an active board member of a govt. environment group and a member of my local Hindmarsh Island Landcare group. I like planting trees. I am also the Postcrossing Forum Administrator and part of the Postcrossing Team.

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

Hindmarsh Island has no mail delivery so I rent a post office box in the nearest town of Goolwa (15km away). The Goolwa post office was the longest active post office in Australia still in its original premises since 1857 but has recently moved to new premises. My PO box is very nondescript and surrounded by equally nondescript boxes.

The new premises are in the local shopping mall.

There is a small staff who are always cheerful and used to me always buying postcards and international stamps. The lone male postie was camera shy but the ladies insisted and as you can see he ducked behind them at the last second.

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

So hard to choose my favourite. I actually have 2 that I always smile about a bit more often.

Beautiful handmade postcard that I have framed and put on my bedside table. I love waking up in the morning and seeing the friendship in this postcard sent by flyers.

The other is a delightful postcard. It comprised of the shaggy dog who was holding the tiny envelope in its mouth. The envelope contained the little card.

As you can see I appreciate the work that goes into handmade postcards.

Jeffrey loves to create wacky mail-art and send it all over the world through Postcrossing. He lives in Canada.

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

I was looking for folks to send my handmade mail-art postcards to. The huge membership of Postcrossing is perfect for getting my wacky art all over the globe. Not everyone likes self-made cards, so I send those people “real” postcards from my extensive collection.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I’ve collected 600 different Polyester Disco shirts from the 1970s. They feature some of the most amazing graphics ever printed on fabric.

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

Here is a photo of my mailbox with an ironic magnet I designed. My mailman says I’m his best customer.

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

Many Postcrossers have sent me special cards. Over 200 of my favorite unusual designs are uploaded on my postcards wall. I couldn’t pick just one :)

Luxembourg native, Luxi, loves the joy of giving – be it sending postcards, adopting children, or volunteering for charity.

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

Some years ago I heard about Postcrossing in a German forum. I was curious and found it interesting and so I opened an account. Up to that day I loved postcards but I was not a real collector. I was mainly attracted by the possibility of receiving postcards from all over the world to get an idea about the beauty and culture of other countries and to share the same about my country, Luxemburg. As soon as I received my first card I got hooked. I found it so amazing that a complete stranger sent a greeting to me from far away and so it became a real passion!

Through all those years I shared precious moments with so many people, I got an amazing collection of wonderful cards, and connected to quite a few people on a further level throuth private swaps and tags in the forum! Some became the sort of friends that exchange surprise cards from our vacations or on holidays. The best part of it is putting a smile on someone’s face! There are so many ways to do this and the feedback I receive is very rewarding for me. It’s kind of “sharing a moment of our life” with the people we exchange a card with.

Soon it became a real addiction and so now I can not even pass by a shop that sells postcards without having a look at them and buying some. I return from all vacations with a stack of special postcards. I also blog almost daily about Postcrossing. My family thinks I am crazy and often make fun of me when they hear me scream out in my office when I receive that special ID or a new country and of course when I am the one to send to a special unusual ID from little Luxemburg. But I guess that is the price to pay right?

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love to read, lazy weekends on the couch, cooking, traveling, my dog and I love to shop (yes that can be a real hobby too!). But basically my life revolves around children. We are an adoptive family and our children have their roots in Peru, Vietnam, and Madagascar. I also work in the adoption field and so naturally I became invested in a charity organisation that got created out of my adoption work. Much of my time is spent on projects for children and women in need in South Africa. Of course this is much more than just a hobby – it is about giving and receiving. By writing these lines here, I also realize that this is probably why Postcrossing is so precious to me, it is also about giving and receiving ;-).

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

My mailbox in front of our house.


The way I collect my cards. Got many of these albums full so far!


My officedesk from where I write my cards.

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

It is hard to point out one single card and say that this is my favorite! Every single card is so special to me! Every scratch, every dent, every beautiful stamp. I love them all because they are all part of the project and make it so unique! It is like a puzzle, you cannot take out one piece because then it is incomplete. But one card that has recently touched my heart is a card from The Netherlands sent from the user Lubbers. (Thank you again Carolien) So I would love to share this one with you: