Category: Postcards

500 Postcards!

November 11, 2021

Yesterday I received my 500th Postcrossing card from Anastajia in Russia:

Reminds you of a certain film doesn’t it?

It was six months ago I passed 150 cards so I’ve been receiving them at the rate of about 25 a month. Since the last update I’ve received cards from 7 additional countries, to a total to 49:

There’s still a long way to go though: there’s users from 206 countries on Postcrossing! Looking at the above chart the average travel times have gone up by a few days compared to six months ago, no doubt due to the pandemic. And as usual it takes about a week longer for me to receive cards than for those I sent them to to get them.

The cards are as weird and varied as ever, helped no doubt by me saying in my profile that I like weird cards! Here’s a couple of notables from this last six months:

That’s a card from Belarus and as you can see the sender matched the stamp to the card. This is the third time this has happened and I’m always impressed since it couldn’t be easy!

That’s an old advertising card I received from Germany. The card is clearly very old (it’s heavily yellowed on the reverse) and a quick google search showed the program it advertises screened in the early 1950s. Could this be a 70 year old card?!?

As always I love the stamps, and the majority of users seem to as well since most put effort into using pretty or unusual examples.

I received a card from Guernsey (a small not-country in the English Channel) which is one of the smallest regions in the world to have its own postal service. While the queens portrait gives a hint as to the connection with Royal Mail, I’ve always been intrigued by these small independent island that have their own mail and it was a treat to get this card.

Look at this gigantic Indonesian stamp! I’ve got some massive stamps from Russia but I think this must be the new record for big stamps!

And then there’s this from a sender in Austria. The stamp and surround perfectly fit into the envelope into which he put the postcard. He mentioned he was an avid stamp collector but he is now aging and is giving away his collection. Amazingly he also included a United Nations first day cover in the envelope:

I’ve never sent a card back to a sender (that’s not how Postcrossing works) but I made an exception in this case and sent him one plastered with a variety of retro stamps.

At 500 received (and 502 sent) I’m now well above the average for US users (which is about 100 cards) but well, well below the top ranks, which is over 14,000 cards for a US user and more than an absurd 33,000 cards for any user (in this case, a German). In fact this German guy has sent an average of 7 cards a day since he signed up about 13 years ago. Imagine the time and cost!

So my next target would be 1000 cards, which at this rate should be in about July 2023. I’ll update when it happens and we’ll see how close my prediction was 🙂

Rain Of Frogs

August 16, 2021

I sent Bernard fifty frog postcards at the same time!

I started by numbering them all. The cards were, of course, unique:

I then hand-addressed and stamped all fifty:

At first I was unsure what to write on each of them, but a quick amazon search gave a handy alternate solution:

The (exactly fifty!) frog stickers were then applied, and I wrote the lyrics to Rainbow Connection across all fifty cards:

This took some time as you may imagine, and the cost was about $40 for the cards, stamps and stickers. Given Bernard only paid $20, he got quite a deal.

“Paid?”, you ask? This was part of a deal i offered him: 50 frogs for $20. I never mentioned it was postcards (or indeed any details at all), but he gladly accepted regardless 🙂

I sent them all on the same day from a variety of post offices and mailboxes. Four days later he received 43 in the mail, and I expect the remaining 7 will arrive today. I hear they were a hit with him and Lakshmi. Overall I deem Operation Rain of Frogs to be a grand success!

I’ve still got a few frogs – and many toads – left. If you want one, indicate as much in the comments!

Portrait Contest: Halftime

June 25, 2021

Bernard and I are having another contest, and this time it’s an art contest! To be specific: portraits. We’re each creating portraits and they are judged by the same five judges as last years postcard contest. While we’re sending these to each other on postcards, the cards themselves have no role in the judging this time.

The rules were simple: we would alternate choosing the subjects week by week, and create neck up portraits in any medium or style. The judges decision would be final.

That was five weeks ago, and we’re now halfway through. Let’s review the results so far!

Elvis Presley

I started choosing subjects with The King and right out of the gate Bernard ignored the ‘neck up’ rule with his ‘portrait’ (on the left)! The judges gave it to him 4-1, but since comments were as blatant as “Wins because of the pose” and “Wins only because of the guitar” I felt the contest had derailed almost immediately. Nonetheless the judges decision was final and Bernard took the early lead.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

The best subjects are ones with many different looks, and you can see from my watercolour (on the left) and Bernard’s pencil sketch that Arnie fits the bill! The judges were torn on this one, and one even declared a tie, but ultimately Conan defeated The Terminator and I won 3.5 – 1.5. Judges comments included “Conan is too slick” and “Terminator doesn’t have enough color”.

Cleopatra

Perhaps I chose Cleo since I expected an easy win, but it’s certain I wasn’t prepared for the magnus opus created by Bernard (on the right). KLS joked that mine (on the left) was very masculine, but even had I demonstrated a better grasp of facial anatomy I daresay Bernard would still have got – as he deserved – the 5-0 win. Incidentally while the photos don’t show it well, both of these feature metallic inks! Judges comments included “The detail is extraordinary!”

Bruce Lee

Bernard chose Bruce Lee, perhaps because he had an image in mind? But Cleo had lit a bonfire under me and there was no way I was handing him another win, so I started taking things seriously. My portrait (on the right) swept all judges for a decisive 5-0 win. Comments included “I love the eyes” and “Excellent use of shading“.

Steve Irwin

We agreed to let Kristin and Lakshmi choose a subject each, and KLS was first up with her choice of the crocodile hunter himself! This was a difficulty subject since he’s so known for holding animals that it was hard to produce a neck-up image that conveyed his essence well. I took a bold approach with the stencil art on the left, and Bernard… well he chose to ignore the rules again. Once again the judges overlooked this infraction and gave him the 5-0 win, even commenting (as one did) that he won “even though it isn’t a portrait”. As for my image, I expect this is not a contest that will reward a novel approach and will return to more conventional styles ahead!

So halfway though, Bernard is up 3-2. Since two of his wins were (arguably) due to images that flaunted the rules the neck-up rule has now been abandoned.

Five more subjects to come, and it’s still anyone’s game! Who will we draw, and who will win? Find out in five weeks!

Robot Claw