Statistics 2011

Since January 2010 I participate in postcrossing and I am still amazed. The concept is so simple - send a postcard, get a postcard back - and it works just fine. Only a few cards get lost due to difficult mail delivery systems in some countries (or maybe because of bad handwriting).

I still can't decide if I like sending or receiving more. You get a name and an address and some few words in a profile text and then it's your turn to search for the perfect card to make that someone happy. Then you decide on what to write to him or her, depending on their interests, sometimes restricted by language. In a way you visit that person, imagining him or her.

Even better, nearly every day now I open my mailbox and find a card or two. Beautiful ones with my favourite topics, interesting ones with some nice story on the back, far-travelled ones from rare countries and with amazing stamps. 

After getting all excited (again) here's the statistics for 2011:

I got 328 postcards this year, a lot of them came from the Netherlands, Finland and the USA. The more "exotic" ones came from Slovakia, Sweden (very few postcrossers there compared to Finland which is one of the most active countries on postcrossing), South Africa, Kazakhstan (!), Croatia, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Korea (South), Philippines, New Zealand and Puerto Rico. 

received cards in 2011 

I sent 333 cards, the Netherlands and Finland being the top countries too. More interesting places to send a postcard to were Guernsey, Slovakia, South Korea, Iran, Hungary, Greece, Kuwait, Latvia, Mexico, Morocco and Singapore. All of them arrived safely. 

 sent cards in 2011

Of course, there's the financial statistics too. If you add up the postage only (which is 75 cents for international cards in Germany) it's a lot of money. I spend about 20€ on stamps per month. I try no to spent too much on the cards, I've got a lot of postcard books and postcard calendars and you can find some of those cheaper in midyear. For me it's worth every cent anyway.