Hello.
This answer maybe a bit off-topic, but I think it fits here quite well.
I’m a Postcrosser from neighboring Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany.
I was really shocked when I heared about the new Danish postage rates valid from 2024. Yesterday I told my wife (also a Postcrosser) about that and she had the idea of trying to support the Danish community a bit. Sure: Denmark is a bit wealthier and (officially) more happy than Germany but surely that’s not valid for everybody.
We think Postcrossing should be affordable for everyone regardless of personal income. Surely the wages paid in DK are higher (but you pay higher taxes, not mentioning the price of a car) but surely far away from the factor of 7 - what makes the difference of the international postage rates: 0.95 EUR / 7.10 DKK in Germany 6.71 € / 50.00 DKK in Denmark. That’s not social. That’s not fair.
I know and understand the reasons for the high prices in Denmark. There’s much less paper mail in your country per capita and so every letter has to be more expensive to cover the total costs for keeping up a nationwide mail service. I think at your’s no-one has to send letters to authorities, insurances and whatsoever anymore, you surely can do everything online.
For comparison: German authorities love paper! If you hear a joke about digital backwardness in Germany … well … mostly they’re no jokes, that’s all true. You like a little example: I work for a small branch of the German social insurance (approx. 450 employees) and we still have 50+ active faxmachines (ask your grandparents what that was) although every employee has access to the internet a personal e-mail-address. But in a lot of branches not every digital format has a legal valid status. What follows? Paper, pen, stamp (the more, the better)!
But we don’t stick to everything oldfashioned: Wax seals and blood signatures have been abolished last year along with the witch burnings. Also telegrams and Telex service is no longer available.
Too much? OK … Back to what it’s about:
Our idea is to give Postcrossers from Denmark the opportunity to send their postcards via Germany. Okay … if you live in Tønder or Padborg ist an easy to do this yourself, you’re for shopping south of the border at least once a month anyway
. But from Aalborg or København it’s quite a long way.
Collect your cards, stuff them in a big envelope and send them to us. When they arrive, we calculate the postage (for standard sized, rectangular cards *** it’s: Germany 70 cent, global 95 cent - we definitively don’t want to make any profit on that), I tell you by E-Mail how much the total postage will be, you pay by PayPal and I send your cards next day. As German stamps are trackable online (until they leave Germany) I’d send you the tracking codes if you like.
If I read it correctly on “postnord.dk” you can send a letter with a weight of 100g for 50.00 DKK, no matter what size. Fully loaded that should hold 13-15 standard postcards (or 40 cards in a 250g letter at 100.00 DKK). So you can save up to around 5.00 EUR / 37.00 DKK per card.
What do you think about our suggestion?
Kind greetings from next door and always HAPPY POSTCROSSING
G & I
Some simple rules from “Deutsche Post / DHL” apply, like min./max. sizes and so on. We tell you on demand.