Postcrossing Blog

Every time we receive one of your lovely friendship stories, we get a huge smile and can’t help but marvel at the power of simple postcards! On today’s post, Nathalie (aka TotosDawn) from the Netherlands tells us how postcards inspired her to travel – and meet her postcard-pals on the other side of the Atlantic!

When I started sending postcards via Postcrossing I never thought that actual friendships could grow and that the people behind the postcards could mean the world to me! But it happened!

On December 22nd 2010 I became a member of Postcrossing. I had heard a lot about the site, and got excited from the first minute I got my first address. I send out 5 postcards and waited behind my computer to see if they already arrived. Finally they started to arrive and I received my first card back!! The person sending this card is JulianChristopher. He sent me a beautiful card of the Sequoia National Park in California. I immediately fell in love with not only sending postcards, but also I wanted to go there because it looked amazing!

Besides sending the official postcards I started to send more and more private swaps and adding postcards to my favorites. Many cards from Blkbird were (and still are!) in my favorite gallery. She send me a message to ask if we could do a private swap! Of course!! It was difficult for me to choose which one of the beautiful cards of my favorites I wanted… One day, a big surprise was waiting for me when I found the private swap in my mailbox: it was an envelope filled with all the cards I added to my favorites send by her! I was amazed to see how sweet someone completely strange to me could be! We started talking and I fell in love again with the beautiful landscapes on the postcards: Colorado!

If before America had never crossed my mind as a holiday destination, now I was checking hotels, flight tickets, rental cars… My love for America only grew the more postcards I got, but it also became more specific. Sequoia National Park, the first card I got, was still in my head and I wanted to see more it. And who better to ask about it than the person who send me my first card? He was so sweet and sent me some more cards and then one thing led to another and we became 'postcard-pals’ and sometimes we spoke on Facebook. I didn’t forget about Colorado either, neither about Blkbird. We kept sending postcards and I fell in love more and more with America.

So when my husband proposed, we didn’t need to think about a honeymoon destination: AMERICA! We planned a roadtrip, crossing all the places I saw on the postcards I loved. But one thing I really wanted to do to was to meet the people who were so sweet to me all this time and had become my friends. I wasn’t sure if they would like to meet me too, I mean, I’m a stranger from another country, who they only knew via Facebook and postcards. But both were really enthusiastic about my plans and we planned the meetings.

First it was JulianChristopher's turn. We planned to see each other in the Sequoia National Park, where else! From the first moment we met I felt so happy and blessed that I had the chance to meet him and his sweet son. I just couldn’t believe that it was real, that it wasn’t a dream. We spend hours hiking and chatting. He could tell us so much about Sequoia, America and so much more. How special to spend time together in the park he showed me for the first time on a postcard as a total stranger!! Time flies and when the moment of saying goodbye came closer I didn’t wanted to say goodbye and felt sad. But no tears when we said goodbye, only a big smile of gratefulness that I could experience this and actually meet the 'stranger-friend from America’.

Meeting Blkbird was just as special as meeting JulianChristopher. Last minute we decided to have dinner the night before we had planned to spend together. We were waiting at the restaurant and she was a bit late, so I was nervous that she wouldn’t come or that she saw us waiting and thought: NO WAY! Nothing of that was true and when we met it was like meeting an old friend after years. No uncomfortable feelings, just chatting, eating, laughing. The restaurant was closing so we needed to go unfortunately but I was more then happy to know that we would meet again the next day.

We planned to go to the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver and the Dushanbe teahouse in Boulder. We enjoyed her 'guided tour’ and company. It was unbelievable how much we had in common. She could have been my mother or sister or twin. She is so alike me that it almost is scary!! No surprise that we didn’t want to say goodbye, so we sat for hours in the car when we got 'kicked out’ of the teahouse. Just talking and enjoying the company. No wonder that when it was REALLY time to say goodbye we both cried. When we drove away, I felt so sad.

JulianChristopher and Blkbird both have a special place in my heart. For them I would return to America without a doubt. When I’m writing this, tears are falling down my cheeks. Tears of sadness that I know that I won’t see them for a long time, tears of happiness, that I had the privilege to meet them.

Who could have thought that sending postcards could actually lead to lifelong friendships!

We were wondering what the Little Mail Carriers had been up to lately, when we received this exciting missive all the way from Idaho! Their host lydacher did a thorough job of spoiling the little guys with splendid views and lots of fun activities! If there was any doubt that the Little Mail Carriers have all the fun…

Hello everyone! Late last year we traveled to Idaho, the U.S. state famous for its extensive wilderness areas, winter sports, and… potatoes.

When we arrived, our mail carrier, Jason, drove us in his truck to Old Town Pocatello. Then he walked us up a hill to our host’s house.

Our host Cheryl (aka lydacher) was in the midst of holiday preparations, so we jumped right in to help! The biscotti were divine – but diving in the chocolate chips was one of our favorite parts…

We were welcomed by the dollhouse family and shown to the guest room. As mail carriers, we had no trouble making friends with the family dog.

The next morning, we ventured out into the snow. We’d brought our bicycle, but the snow was too deep, so the dollhouse family loaned us their 4-wheeler.

Wheeeeeee!

Oops! Ouch… Are you ok, Little Paulo? Maybe that’s enough snow for one day…

While we dried our clothes and took a rest, our host gave us some facts about Idaho, which has only 1.5 million people living in an area of 219,887 square kilometres. Much of that area is designated wilderness, where motorized travel is prohibited. Idaho has more miles of rivers than any of the other contiguous U.S. states and several mountain ranges that include at least 9 peaks that are more than 12,000 feet (3.6576 kilometres) above sea level.

To take a break from all the snow, we warmed up in Lava Hot Springs, a short drive out of the city. These pools are fed by natural underground hot springs and are most popular during the winter, when the freezing air meets the 110° Fahrenheit (or 43° Celsius) water and creates an outdoor sauna.

The next morning, we looked through our host’s postcard collection, which she keeps in notebooks and special boxes, filed by country and theme. We learned that she has taught classes about Postcrossing through New Knowledge Adventures, a continuing education program offered by Idaho State University.

She makes children’s mobiles from some of the colorful postcards she receives, and she also made a platform for an electric train for us to ride with our Lego friends – complete with scenic postcards that reflect the views we should see from a real train. How cool is that?! :D

We helped our host select postcards to send and accompanied her to the post office. Postman Rocky sold us stamps and weighed us on his postage scale. Rocky told us that we weigh about the same as a first-class letter!

Bidding Rocky goodbye, we drove back toward the hills on the west side of the city. We’d taken our bicycle along to do some trail-biking… but instead we just sat on a split-rail fence, watching the trains in the valley below us.

The view was just breathtaking!

During the week, we also visited some museums that are uniquely Idaho. The Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University features an exhibit of prehistoric whorl-tooth shark (Helicoprion) fossils found in Idaho.

Idaho is sometimes called the “Potato State, ” owing to its popular and widely-distributed crop. The Idaho Candy Company makes an “Idaho Spud” candy bar that resembles a potato, and there’s even a Potato Museum that houses the world’s largest potato crisp!

We were invited to some holiday parties where we were welcomed by friends of all ages and got to hang out in the decorations!

And of course, we met some Idaho cats. This photo is for all those postcrossers who love cat postcards! :)

Year 2013 is over, and it’s time to bid our host goodbye… Happy New Year 2014 from Idaho!

Thank you so much lydacher for this amazing stay! On they go!

The little guys are currently looking for hosts for the next months, so if you’ve got a camera and some free time to show them around, leave a comment and we’ll get in touch! :)

I must confess that our jaws dropped when we received this report… as if Paris wasn’t stunning enough, Petitpilote managed to take the little ones on her flights with her, show them around the biggest airplane in the world and visit another 2 cities in the US!! Read on, for another adventure-filled report! :)

So if you’ve read our previous report, you know we were about to board a plane with our host Petitpilote, who is an air hostess on long haul flights.

July was her stand-by duty month so she could fly anywhere and the destinations would all be surprises both for her and for us! What a great experience! We always travel into envelopes and this time, we have flown inside a plane and seen the world around! And the first destination was…

… Boston, charming city of the USA!

Largest city and capital of Massachusetts, Boston was founded in 1630 and is one of the oldest towns of the United States. With many colleges and universities, the city is an international hub of education and a major cultural center as well. This is from the balcony of the Old State House in Boston that Thomas Jefferson read the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

The stopover was very short and by happy chance the hotel located downtown, convenient for a quick sightseeing around. We walked through the Little Italy district and then straight to the Marina to enjoy the waterfront atmosphere.

Weather was fair, lots of little boats were preparing for some sea trip. Looking through the spyglass, we have imagined incredible buccaneers and pirate adventures!

The second destination was Washington D.C.! The capital of the USA!

We were fortunate to fly into the big Airbus A380. Woooow… A double-deck airliner, the biggest plane in the world with 24 crew members and 516 passengers! And two little free-riders of course! :D

The Captain invited us to join the cockpit during the flight; we could sit on the instruments panel and experience interesting moments and a beautiful balcony view.

And while the ocean was evaporating at high speed under our wings, our host and his colleagues were ensuring the comfort and safety of passengers in the cabin.

Washington, here we are! No time to have some rest. Our host had again a busy schedule for us! For the first step, we have visited the National Postal Museum!

Image on the right by AgnosticPreachersKid at Wikipedia.

Dedicated to the postal history of the United States, the Museum offers many interactive displays and a big room with a permanent exhibit “moving the mail”.

On the road, through the rail and airmail, we have explored more than three centuries of postal old days. What a brilliant place! We have met lots of other international postboxes from the past!

There are many American institutions in Washington, such as the White House which is the official residence of the President…

… but also the Capitol where the Congress sits as well as the Supreme Court and other federal agencies.

After a delightful promenade under an agreeable sun, we made some stops in front of these remarkable spots. In the morning, with a head full of unforgettable memories, we left Washington back to France. We can’t wait to join our next adventure! Au revoir and see you soon!

Our huuuge thank you to Petitpilote for these wonderful reports! Never in a million years would we have imagined that the little ones would get to see the inside of a A380's cockpit! :D Onwards they go…

PS – Curious to know who won last weekend’s giveaway? The results are on the bottom of the Green Banana Card’s post!

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!

We can probably all agree receiving a postcard in the mail from an exotic faraway place is one of the more exciting things that might happen in a day… but did you know that some decades ago, a pharmaceutical company used this precise notion to come up with one of the most unique marketing schemes of all time? Read on – it’s a good story!

Between the years 1954 and 1968, Abbott Laboratories of Illinois sent out 240,000 postcards every couple of weeks to doctors, nurses, and health facilities all over the world. They manufactured, stamped, and postmarked over 170 unique postcards from 165 different towns in 85 countries. The postcards’ authenticity of origin intrigued the recipients, increasing their overall effectiveness.

Each card began with the salutation, “Dear Doctor, ” except for several versions sent to non-doctors that omitted this greeting and just had the message. The pictures on the cards displayed local scenes portraying the place, culture, or people of the particular country it was mailed from. The entertaining message on the back was written in a friendly tone, and never forgot to plug their prized product—an intravenous anesthetic by the name of Pentothal. This drug, by the way, is still used today not only for its anaesthetic effects, but also in some places for its truth serum properties!

It is a bit of a mystery how this novel idea originated. In an article by Daniel Friedman, one Abbott employee, Dean Carson, was quoted saying, “I just came up with this idea and they said it was fine.” Others speculate it was either the Abbott advertising executive, Tom Bird or Charless Hahn, the Chicago Sun Times stamp editor, who had previously collaborated on a magazine together advertising Abbott products to doctors in Latin America.

Whoever actually invented this genius marketing method back then probably didn’t fully realize the extent of popularity these postcards possess among present-day collectors. In September 2012, a bunch of Dear Doctor postcards were sold on eBay raking in hundreds of dollars for each card—the record price was $298!

Impressive, isn’t it?

By the way, the photos that illustrate this post come from the collection of Tom Fortunato, who graciously allowed us to use them. Tom runs deardoctorpostcards.com, a website for Dear Doctor postcard collectors – check it out!