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.

Development of the number of postcards sent from August 2005 to June 2019

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
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

Countries with the most members Ranking country user sent postcards 1.  Russia 103.282 6,926,701 2.  Taiwan 101.405 2,505,443 3.  United States 73.274 6,247,484 4th  People's Republic of China 72,931 2,471,460 5.  Germany 55,709 8,844,567 6th  Netherlands 40,852 4,397,527 7th  Poland 33,613 1,432,672 8th.  Belarus 31,213 2,354,415 9.  Ukraine 25,465 1,485,709 10.  Czech Republic 21,571 1,560,621 11.  Finland 19,080 3,542,746 12.  United Kingdom 17,784 1,153,679 13.  France 16.091 1,176,811 14th  Turkey 11,145 331.937 15th  Canada 10,824 934,599 16.  Japan 10,620 1,306,562 17th  Hong Kong 10,380 624.113 18th  India 10,232 339,563 19th  Indonesia 9,023 249.146 20th  Brazil 8,997 448,761 21st  Lithuania 8,672 647,338 22nd  Spain 7,261 556.171 23.  Australia 7.179 664.871 24.  Portugal 6,795 600,834 25th  Thailand 6,372 265,575

Countries with the most postcards sent Ranking country user sent postcards 1.  Germany 55,709 8,844,567 2.  Russia 103.282 6,926,701 3.  United States 73.274 6,247,484 4th  Netherlands 40,852 4,397,527 5.  Finland 19,080 3,542,746 6th  Taiwan 101.405 2,505,443 7th  People's Republic of China 72,931 2,471,460 8th.  Belarus 31,213 2,354,415 9.  Czech Republic 21,571 1,560,621 10.  Ukraine 25,465 1,485,709 11.  Poland 33,613 1,432,672 12.  Japan 10,620 1,306,562 13.  France 16.091 1,176,811 14th  United Kingdom 17,784 1,153,679 15th  Canada 10,824 934,599 16.  Australia 7.179 664.871 17th  Belgium 5.112 655.747 18th  Lithuania 8,672 647,338 19th  Hong Kong 10,380 624.113 20th  Portugal 6,795 600,834 21st  Spain 7,261 556.171 22nd  Italy 4,609 509.028 23.  Malaysia 6,077 476,727 24.  Switzerland 3,493 476,727 25th  Austria 3,185 463,321

Postcrossing philately

bilingual stamp pad Happy Postcrossing of the Post Office of  Belarus , 2014

Postage stamp I ❤ postcrossing , Post of Russia , 2015

First Day Cover of Belarus Happy Postcrossing! from 2017

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.

Postcrossing stamps published to date

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

1. ↑ The story behind postcrossing (accessed: April 30, 2017)
2. ↑ 50! MILLION! POSTCARDS! Retrieved January 15, 2019 . 
3. ↑ 50 million postcards coming up ... guess when! Retrieved January 15, 2019 . 
4. ↑ FAQ on Postcrossing (accessed: May 3, 2013)
5. ↑ 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.  
6. ↑ ^{a b} Country statistics on postcrossing (accessed: July 23, 2020)
7. ↑ ^{a b} Postcrossing stamp from the Netherlands (accessed: October 14, 2012)
8. ↑ Postcrossing stamp from Finland (accessed: May 30, 2013)
9. ↑ Lithuania Post to Release a Stamp for Postcrossing | Lietuvos paštas. In: www.post.lt. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
10. ^ A new Postcrossing stamp, from Belarus! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
11. ^ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Guernsey! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
12. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Russia! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
13. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Slovenia! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
14. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Czech Republic! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
15. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Ukraine! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
16. ^ New Postcrossing stamps from the Netherlands! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
17. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Austria! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
18. ↑ Postcrossing turns 11 ... plus 2 new stamps coming out today! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
19. ↑ Postcrossing turns 11 ... plus 2 new stamps coming out today! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved October 20, 2016 . 
20. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp from Belarus! In: www.postcrossing.com. Retrieved January 5, 2017 . 
21. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp from Romania! Accessed February 24, 2017 . 
22. ↑ Postcrossing turns 12 + new Postcrossing stamps ... from Indonesia! Retrieved August 1, 2017 . 
23. ↑ New Postcrossing stamps ... from Switzerland! Retrieved August 1, 2017 . 
24. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Ireland! Retrieved February 23, 2018 . 
25. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Hungary! Retrieved February 23, 2018 . 
26. ↑ A new Postcrossing stamp ... from Moldova! Retrieved June 23, 2018 . 
27. ↑ Åland Postcrossing stamp launch + giveaway! Retrieved July 9, 2019 . 

Web links

• postcrossing.com
• Interviews with postcrossers from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania