Postcrossing Blog

Since Halloween is just around the corner, we decided it was time to tell you a bit more about this popular holiday – and the postcards that used to be sent around this time of the year :)

Halloween originated from Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival celebrating the season change from summer to winter. This night was allegedly filled with magic and spirits. Demons and ghosts were allowed to roam the Earth on this night, so people wore strange outfits and scary costumes in order to trick the spirits and frighten them away.

The Catholic Church then adapted this pagan tradition into All Saints’ Day; the night before was called, “All hallows’ evening, ” or “Hallow e’en”. Irish immigrants rekindled interest in this celebration in America, with door-to-door visits, masquerades, and the jack o’lantern (based on a myth about a soul trapped on Earth, only given the burning embers of hell for guidance). It was the Victorians who eventually brought the Halloween traditions of England and America together, making it a refined holiday involving child’s play, romance, and parlor games.

When postcards emerged in the late 1800s, sending a holiday postcard was an inexpensive way to send your greetings. Early Halloween postcards featured cute, chubby traditional Halloween symbols- like jack o’lanterns, black cats, and children in costumes. Witches were often portrayed as very beautiful women sending messages of romance and amour. Other cards featured people bobbing for apples, predicting who they might marry, and playing games of chance. Some cards had accompanying verses like, “On Halloween, Goblins have been known to fly away with Fair Maidens. Therefore ‘tis best to have some one hold you and tightly, too—because Goblins are strong."

The peak of the Halloween postcard trend lasted roughly until 1918. Approximately 3,500 images were produced during that time. Cards did not begin depicting the tradition of trick-or-treating until the 1930s; one of the only indications that trick-or-treating did not become a widespread practice until then.

Vintage Halloween postcards are highly collected and some of the hardest to find. Original Edwardian postcards are especially rare, and can be distinguished from the spelling of the holiday “Hallowe’en.” Prices for these postcards range from $20-$600, depending on the condition of the card and how rare it is.

Check out these and more great vintage Halloween postcards available through Flickr Commons!

Sometime ago, Carol (aka carolreader) received a special postcard from Anneliese (aka illustransit). It depicted an anonymous person on a Portland bus, which had been hand-drawn by the sender during her commute. Carol told us she was floored by the quality of Anneliese’s illustrations, and that we ought to check them out.

Discovering Anneliese’s work has been magic. We loved the idea of these remarkable and unique postcards, and decided to ask her about them.

A couple of years ago, Anneliese donated her car, and started taking the bus to and from work. Reading in motion made her woozy, so on her new-found commute time, she decided to observe instead:

I love watching people during this time, when they are between places, simultaneously in public and in solitude, both guarded and naked. Their posture, their fidgeting, whether they engage or avoid eye contact, their exhaustion, and their anticipation. I think about where they might be headed, where they’re coming from, and what kind of day they might be having. I spend so much time observing these people, that I decided to draw them.

The format for these portraits is the postcard. After documenting a bus-rider, I drop the postcard in the mail to a stranger somewhere else in the world. For me, there’s something incredibly motivating about drawing for another person. I hope that whomever receives these postcards enjoys them. And I hope you enjoy looking at them!

What a nice way to spend your commute time! Well done, Anneliese! Too see more of her illustrated postcards, check out her website.

Lately, Japanese Gotochi Cards are becoming quite popular and sought after among postcrossers – so we thought it would be fun to tell you a bit more about them here on the blog. Read on!

Gotochi cards are designed and released by the Japanese Postal System, and each one of them represents a place in Japan – hence the name 'gotochi’, which means 'local’. They showcase Japanese symbols (which might be local dishes, costumes, monuments, landscapes, etc.) on a national and regional level, in a brightly coloured and fun cartoon.

Gotochi cards have a couple of unique features that make them special. First of all, they are not perfect rectangles, but in fact take on the shape of their picture. Also, each card not only has a cartoon picture on it, but also the name of the place that is depicted in the image. Every prefecture has multiple cards, which might be one of the reasons that collecting them has taken off and became such a popular hobby!

Some of the most famous Gotochi postcards include Kyoto’s Geisha’s and Ibaraki’s melons. You can check out the whole collection of cards on the postcard collection site.

Hope you enjoyed discovering the Japanese Gotochi cards! Which one is your favourite? :)

Note: While they are super-cute, please bear in mind that they are also more expensive to send than normal postcards – and so it is hard for Japanese postcrossers to send a lot of them.

Nobody loves their postcards like postcrossers do – and so we want to make sure that they are safe and sound at all times. We’re often asked the best way to store and transport them, but with so many options and alternatives, it’s hard to cover them all… Nevertheless, we thought we’d give it a try!

Postcard boxes are a popular storage method and you have tons of color and pattern choices to select from. Amazon sells a number of different postcard boxes, but often you can also find them in local card shops.

From left to right: Vaultz acrylic box, Vaultz locking cabinet and Semikolon file box (comes in all sorts of colors).

If you cannot find a fun color or style that you like, you can get creative and decorate the outside with fabric, markers or anything else that speaks to you. Some of these boxes have dividers that make it simple to store the cards and then find them easily using the labels on top of the dividers.

There are also sells a variety of different postcard albums that are ideal for keeping your postcards looking like new for years to come.

From left to right: Hobbymaster postcard album, Hobbymaster linen style album and Trademark postcard organizer.

Make sure that any album you choose is acid-free, as well as free from PVC and has plenty of quality pocket sheets, which will really keep your cards covered nicely. Place the cards inside of the plastic and they will be kept out of harm’s way for good safekeeping.

And now for something slightly different…

A fun way to show off your postcards and keep them stored in style might be by placing them in the pockets of a shower curtain. Yes, there is such a thing! Urban Outfitters sells a shower curtain with vinyl pockets that lets you keep your postcards in a safe place and display them in style. Check it out on their website for more details.

We’d be slightly worried about humidity damaging the cards – so you might want to keep your most beloved cards away from it, but other than that, seems like a nice solution for a postcrosser’s bathroom!

So don’t just throw your postcards in a drawer! Keep them safe and sound so they can look great for a long time to come. :)

PS – How do you store your postcards? Share your tips in the comments!

Early today we’ve reached 13 million postcards! Congratulations everyone! They seem to be coming faster and faster these days! :)

We’d like to feature a couple of designers who are also postcrossers, and have used their talents to create postcards especially for the project.

We discovered Alex’s (aka Shurkala) postcards by accident, but were immediately in awe of his skills! Alex told us that the postcards were born of an experiment with typography and combining digital vector drawing with watercolor. He’s very happy with the results, and started printing and selling his postcards on Shurkenberg, his Etsy shop.

The second designer, Femke (aka Mevrouwtjetheelepel) is a product designer from the Netherlands. Her mother, sister and aunts are also very active postcrossers so she created the 'Holland’ postcard for them to send it to other postcrossers around the world. It’s a beautiful card, filled with all kinds of things which we associate with The Netherlands:

We spent a good deal of time going through all the items, laughing at the unexpected ones :) You can check out this and other postcards made by Femke on her site (Dutch).