Postcrossing
Postcrossing | |
---|---|
http://www.postcrossing.com/ | |
motto | Send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world! |
description | Send postcards and get other postcards back |
Registration | Yes |
languages | English |
owner | Paulo Magalhães |
Originator | Paulo Magalhães |
Published | 2005 |
status | On-line |
Postcrossing is a project based on bookcrossing , which enables people unknown to each other to send postcards to randomly selected other participants ("postcrossers"). For every card sent you get one back from another random postcrosser.
history
The project was started on July 14, 2005 by Paulo Magalhães. Everything on the website is handled in English to ensure uniform communication, but there is help in the attached forum in German.
Currently (November 4, 2018) over 746,867 members from 214 countries and territories are already participating in postcrossing. The members are about 66 percent female, 14 percent male, 1 percent groups and 19 percent without information. More than 49 million postcards have already been sent and registered. In doing so, they covered over 248 billion kilometers. More than 60 percent of all postcards are also scanned by the members and placed on the Postcrossing online gallery (and the trend is rising). Around 390,000 cards are currently on the way. On average, a postcard is on the move for 24 days, with more than half of all cards taking less than 16 days.
On April 11, 2008, the one millionth postcard was registered.
In less than a year it was already 2 million, seven months later 3 million, another six months later 4 million and less than five months later the five millionth postcard was registered. Four months later there were 6 and 7 million, a good three months later 8 million, and three more months 9 million. The ten millionth postcard was registered in Germany on January 27, 2012 and came from Japan. In 2012 alone, 5 million postcards were sent. The 15 million mark was a milestone. It was assumed that this will be achieved in 2012. There was also a countdown and a competition to see who can guess the exact time. The 15 million mark was reached on December 31 at 2:46 p.m. CET . Around 1 million postcards are currently being sent out in around two months.
To celebrate 50 million postcards sent, there was another competition in 2018 to find out who can guess the time to the second. The winner received a box with 100 postcards. 14 other users who were closest to the actual time each received a box with 20-30 cards. Each time could only be "bet" by one person. The sender and recipient also received a postcard box with 50 cards each.
date | Time CET / CEST | Millions of postcards | from → to |
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April 11, 2008 | 17:00 | 1 | Turkey → Romania |
February 26, 2009 | 07:30 | 2 | Germany → Norway |
September 24, 2009 | 17:10 | 3 | Finland → Slovenia |
March 28, 2010 | 12:20 | 4th | Czech Republic → Netherlands |
August 24, 2010 | 21:00 | 5 | Italy → Thailand |
December 30, 2010 | 13:00 | 6th | Spain → Germany |
April 19, 2011 | 20:00 | 7th | People's Republic of China → Netherlands |
August 2, 2011 | 12:30 | 8th | Finland → Japan |
November 3, 2011 | 08:00 | 9 | People's Republic of China → Russia |
January 27, 2012 | 17:50 | 10 | Japan → Germany |
April 3, 2012 | 22:10 | 11 | United States → Iceland |
June 12, 2012 | 20:30 | 12 | United States → Netherlands |
22nd August 2012 | 07:10 | 13 | Hong Kong → Russia |
October 25, 2012 | 22:50 | 14th | Netherlands → Honduras |
December 31, 2012 | 14:46 | 15th | Germany → Italy |
4th March 2013 | 09:21 | 16 | Ukraine → Russia |
1st of May 2013 | 02:21 | 17th | Russia → Australia |
3rd July 2013 | 08:57 | 18th | Finland → Taiwan |
2. September 2013 | 10:56 | 19th | Ukraine → Germany |
October 29, 2013 | 06:49 | 20th | United States → Taiwan |
December 23, 2013 | 21st | Netherlands → Italy | |
17th February 2014 | 22nd | Netherlands → Poland | |
April 10, 2014 | 23 | Germany → Australia | |
June 8, 2014 | 24 | Latvia → Japan | |
August 10, 2014 | 11:02 | 25th | Netherlands → Germany |
2nd June 2015 | 00:27 | 30th | Germany → Portugal |
February 13, 2017 | 06:39 | 40 | Taiwan → France |
December 27, 2018 | 20:13 | 50 | Israel → Russia |
functionality
In order to be able to use postcrossing, registration via the project website is required, where the postal address and an email address must be entered. In order to send a postcard, an address must be requested. The allocation is random, the target country cannot be selected. However, you can choose whether you want to send or receive cards to your home country. Each card is given a unique number (ID) according to the DE-12345 scheme . The letters stand for the country in which the sender lives, the numbers are assigned in ascending order for each country. The number also stands for the number of cards sent in the respective country.
When writing the postcard, the sender is not bound by any rules, only the ID has to appear on the postcard so that the recipient can confirm receipt. When a sent postcard arrives, the recipient registers the card by entering the ID on the website. This releases the sender address and randomly distributes it to another participant. You can only receive a postcard if you have sent one yourself.
To protect against spam, a user can initially only send five cards (and thus only receive five addresses), and one more for each card registered by the recipient, so that initially there are never more than five of the user's cards on the move ( traveling ). However, as the number of cards sent by the user and registered by the respective recipient increases, this limit increases, so that over time the user can send more and more cards at the same time. The maximum number of cards that can be sent at the same time is 100 cards.
Membership distribution
As of July 23, 2020
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Postcrossing philately
On October 14, 2011, the Dutch postal company PostNL presented a postcrossing stamp set at the Postex 2011 philatelic event in Apeldoorn . They serve as full- value postage stamps for sending international postcards in the Netherlands and are an often desired collector's item among collectors in the postcrossing community. The brands were designed by Garech and Declan Stone. Postcrossing founder Paulo Magalhães received the first bow on October 15, 2011 at the event. A set of ten brands costs nine euros in the Netherlands.
Since then, other countries have continuously published stamps with a thematic connection to postcrossing; some of them now several times. The ongoing publication of postage stamps related to Postcrossing is generating a steadily increasing philatelic interest both in the Postcrossing stamps themselves as well as in first day and special postmarks on the subject.
On July 14, 2015, Deutsche Post issued a pre-franked postcard for worldwide shipping for the tenth anniversary at a price of 1.00 euros.
publication | country | Postal company |
---|---|---|
10/14/2011 | Netherlands | PostNL |
09/09/2013 | Finland | Posti |
05/10/2013 | Lithuania | Lietuvos paštas |
02/01/2014 | Belarus | Belpost |
05/28/2014 | guernsey | Guernsey Post |
01/25/2015 | Russia | Почта России |
05/29/2015 | Slovenia | Pošta Slovenije |
02.09.2015 | Czech Republic | Česká Pošta |
09/10/2015 | Ukraine | Ukrposhta |
07/11/2015 | Kazakhstan | Kazpost |
23/12/2015 | Bulgaria | Bulgarian Posts |
03/25/2016 | Russia | Почта России |
03/29/2016 | Netherlands | PostNL |
05/21/2016 | Austria | Austrian Post AG |
07/14/2016 | Poland | Poczta Polska |
07/14/2016 | guernsey | Guernsey Post |
03/01/2017 | Belarus | Belpost |
02/24/2017 | Romania | Poșta Română |
07/14/2017 | Indonesia | POS Indonesia |
07.09.2017 | Switzerland | Swiss Post AG |
05.10.2017 | Ireland | To post |
02/02/2018 | Hungary | Magyar Posta |
June 23, 2018 | Moldova | Poșta Moldovei |
07.09.2019 | Åland | Åland Post |
swell
- ↑ The story behind postcrossing (accessed: April 30, 2017)
- ↑ 50! MILLION! POSTCARDS! Retrieved January 15, 2019 .
- ↑ 50 million postcards coming up ... guess when! Retrieved January 15, 2019 .
- ↑ FAQ on Postcrossing (accessed: May 3, 2013)
- ↑ Countries. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on August 31, 2018 ; accessed on November 4, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Country statistics on postcrossing (accessed: July 23, 2020)
- ↑ a b Postcrossing stamp from the Netherlands (accessed: October 14, 2012)
- ↑ Postcrossing stamp from Finland (accessed: May 30, 2013)
- ↑ Lithuania Post to Release a Stamp for Postcrossing | Lietuvos paštas. In: www.post.lt. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ^ A new Postcrossing stamp, from Belarus! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ^ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Guernsey! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Russia! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Slovenia! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Czech Republic! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Ukraine! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ^ New Postcrossing stamps from the Netherlands! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Austria! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ Postcrossing turns 11 ... plus 2 new stamps coming out today! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ Postcrossing turns 11 ... plus 2 new stamps coming out today! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp from Belarus! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved January 5, 2017 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp from Romania! Accessed February 24, 2017 .
- ↑ Postcrossing turns 12 + new Postcrossing stamps ... from Indonesia! Retrieved August 1, 2017 .
- ↑ New Postcrossing stamps ... from Switzerland! Retrieved August 1, 2017 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Ireland! Retrieved February 23, 2018 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Hungary! Retrieved February 23, 2018 .
- ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Moldova! Retrieved June 23, 2018 .
- ↑ Åland Postcrossing stamp launch + giveaway! Retrieved July 9, 2019 .