Postcrossing - It's Fun!

I joined up with "Postcrossing" five months ago, I first heard of it on a Facebook group - have you heard of it?   It's an online postcard exchange - it's all about sending and receiving cards from all over the world.  Postcrossing began in 2005, there are over 489,000 members in 212 different countries.  I used to collect postcards, then I sold them for quite a while on Ebay, so it really appealed to me, in that five month period, I've sent 56 postcards and received 54.  I think it would be the greatest thing for kids to get into - here is the website where you can read all about it

Here's my 54 postcards received..

My first card came from Australia, since then they're come from all corners of the world - Russia, Germany, Latvia, Netherlands, China, USA, Finland, Belarus, Portugal, Ukraine, South Africa, Ireland, Japan, Hong Kong, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland - it's so fun to get one from a new country. 

And, the stamps are so beautiful..

 

You can state on your profile which kind of cards that you'd like to receive, here's some of my faves that I've received.

The one challenge involved, in my area, anyway is finding postcards - you just don't see them like you used to.   Canada Post sells them and they're prepaid, which makes for a very nice deal as you can send them anywhere in the world, but the variety is not that great.  It's hard hard to find them, I went to a major tourist attraction in my area and asked for postcards, they had one and it wasn't nice, the response to my question was that no one sends postcards anymore, everything is online.  Apparently not, if there are nearly 500,000 Postcrossers worldwide - just waiting  for a nice postcard in their mailbox!!

Interested?  

Old Valentine Postcards

A few years ago I was into vintage postcards, I shared some at Christmas, my Valentine postcards are not as plentiful, I think they were more expensive to buy, that's why I only have very few, but here they are....they are so pretty.  Wouldn't it be special to get a card like this in the mail?  I'm linking up with My Favorite Thing at Mockingbird Hill Cottage

The card was addressed to Miss Minnie Ferguson, Garretton, Ont. 

Gertrude sent this one to Miss Wilda Laub in 1908

There's writing on this one but I can't make it out

Anna sent this one to Master Walter Barnhart , it was postmarked from Harrisburg, PA in 1909

This wouldn't be a politically correct Valentine these days!  Charles Alfred sent it to Marjory Duff, I wonder if he was her sweetheart way back in 1908

I don't know if you would really call this a Valentine or not, I just always thought it was the cutest.  Click on it so you can read what's under each bow.  This card was never used. 

I'm including these because they were in with the Valentines -  it's a little hard to scan something small like this and have them straight, so, excuse me on that.  These are calling cards, I googled calling cards to read a bit more about them, the telephone calling card is what automatically came up, that's what a calling card is to us now.  These are probably from the early 20th century - when visiting friends or "making calls",  people would leave a card at the front door or parlor, usually in a special silver dish, even if the person they were visiting was at home.  They were used as a reminder about who had visited recently and deserved a visit in turn.  Can you just imagine some of these finely dressed ladies passing out their calling cards?  Have you ever seen them before?