Postcrossing Blog

We saw this delightful video on Ilona’s (aka MissiveMaven)'s blog and just had to share it. Hurray for cats and mail!

Now wasn’t that a 13-minute break well spent? 🐈 📮!

It’s no secret we’re big fans of the behind-the-scenes part of postal delivery (see here, here or here). Russell (aka SonOfBilly) from New Zealand, spotted this love of ours and sent us this video by New Zealand Post:

That put a huge smile on our faces! Samson’s enthusiasm is contagious, and pretty much a mirror of our own delight when we see these videos. Keep them coming! 😊

Late last year, Deutsche Post and Berlin’s Museum for Communications launched a video competition themed “Why do we still write letters?”, where people could post videos explaining the charm of written mail. They got over 400 video submissions, which you can see on their YouTube channel. They’re sweet, touching stories of why we still put pen to paper to write to to each other.

We only heard about the competition once it was over, but were happily surprised to find a video about Postcrossing among the entries! Have a look:

Johannes (aka joze-post) made this charming video, which does a great job of portraying the randomness of Postcrossing. He didn’t win the competition… but he stole our hearts with the cheerful music and fun details about some of the postcards. Well done Johannes! :)

Earlier this week, RTÉ (Ireland’s national broadcaster) aired part two of a six-part documentary about the Dublin’s General Post Office. The series, told in weekly episodes, revolves around the iconic building and includes stories from many of the people who use it on a daily basis. Here’s the synopsis:

“Best known as the headquarters of the 1916 Rising, the GPO has been at the heart of Irish life for 200 years. Inside the GPO goes behind the scenes at Ireland’s busiest post office; home to 950 staff, a microcosm of Irish society, and caretaker of letters, parcels, hopes and stories.”

Well… postcrossers do visit post offices rather often, so it’s only natural that a group of enthusiastic Irish postcrossers were picked to be featured on the documentary!

Sitting down in a café with their stamps and postcards, Nora (aka ned44440), John (aka jr11577), Claudia (aka chrissybaby) and Kodzos (aka kodzos) braved the cameras and did an excellent job representing the Irish Postcrossing community. Well done guys!

You can see the segment (until April 21st) at http://www.rte.ie/player/is/show/inside-the-gpo-30003923/10549881. This is the second part of this series — the first one can be seen here.
If you like it so far, do follow RTÉ's website for the next episodes!

Postal related videos have a soft spot in our mail-loving hearts… bonus points if they feature postcards and envelopes whizzing by at the speed of light! 😀

So we were happy to discover another of these videos, which Ana (aka ninocas) from Portugal shared with us. Some details are specific to the USA, but in our experience, this is how mail is processed in most countries as well. Have a look:

The video is part of Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum’s permanent exhibition Systems at Work, where you can learn how the postal service works and has evolved over the past 200 years.

If you’re not in the US, you can still “visit” this exhibition (and the whole museum in fact!) on their virtual tours — it’s super interesting!