Date & weather info

I have only recently started, and have not included the date or weather so far (I do not come from a letter writing background!). But I have received a couple with it on, and it made me happy, so I will start doing so. Plus, like someone said above, it is important “historical” information for people looking at our cards in the future - I know I like to find that sort of thing on vintage cards

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I skip the location since I am bit uncomfortable to mention my exact location, however I have been playing with the idea to write it in local dialect as the name is completely different and so far google hasn’t figured it out :slight_smile:

I m not that interested on weather + other info, so I do my best to include it if the profile mentions that but 90% cases I will simply forget it. I am trying to remember the date as I have myself got few cards that traveled for very long time and then it is nice to know that before registering the card, but I am afraid I get so into writing that I forget that too very often.

I am sometimes playing with the idea of what else of these little facts could be included? Exact time, mood, song playing… Have to admit the mood of writer is something I could find interesting! Anybody here writes postcards while being royally pissed off???

I was taught to start the letters with place and date too, including address in corner when writing official letters, but it feels someway too formal for postcards.

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I always write the date and place. That’s the convention for snail mail. I noticed that the date/place on the postage stamps on my received postcards is blurred or illegible in more than half of the cases. Many people write in this thread that they do not mention the weather, because it is always the same in their country / region. I think many Postcrossers will find this info very interesting :blush:. It says a lot about where you live!

I got so used to doodling small pictures with a cloud, a sun, etc. that I added them in last year’s Christmas cards for my family. My brother was very happy and surprised that I mentioned the weather. He lives far away :wink:.

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Samesies. (Except the Helsinki part.)

It’s been a weird summer for weather in Texas, so I always include the temperature. And we just had record rainfalls last weekend, so I’ve talked about that on some of my outgoing cards.

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I hardly ever put the date or temperature because USA is one of few countries that use our type of date format and Fahrenheit for temperatures. I also try to stay away from writing anything that would include measurements such as miles, gallons, pounds, etc. I don’t want to have to take the time to convert it for the rest of the world, nor do I ever spend time converting what people put on the postcards. Not that I don’t care, but…you know how it is. It’s too bad everyone can’t get on board and do it the right way like America does. :wink::ok_hand:t3:

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I tend to write the date because I thought it would be nice for the recipient to think back what he/she might have been doing when I was penning the card on that exact day. It’s also a nice gauge to see how many days have passed and how long the card has travelled before it got to the recipient.

The weather also affects my mood to write, in some ways. When the sun is up and bright; when the winds are howling and shrieking through the window gaps; when the clouds are heavy and gray… the topics I think of to pen on the card change along with it. And I think that’s special and intimate.

Postcrossing to me is fascinating in the way that it seemed like two stranger worlds have collided, mine and the recipient’s.

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I never even thought to include the date, location, or weather on the card until I saw it requested in a profile. My issue is that I write my cards and then take them to the post office in batches, so the date rarely matches the postmark. Plus mail has slowed down in my town so I’ve noticed things are taking longer to deliver. I try to include the info if requested, but don’t otherwise as space is so limited.

I’m always puzzled by a profile request to write the date…I assumed it was already on the postmark or the receiver could just check the statistics

I like to see the date/weather/location info when I receive cards, and I generally try to include them in the cards I send out - but sometimes I write too much and don’t have space for it.

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I am not sure if I should write the highest temperature of the day or the temperature of the time I am writing the cards?

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Unfortunately, there is often no postmark. I receive a lot of uncancelled cards from the USA. It’s the same for postcards from Finland.

If I later want to look at postcards, I would like to be able to read the date on the postcard and not go look at the statistics on the website.

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I mark the current temperature when I’m writing postcards so of course it’s lower if I write them in the morning. :grinning:

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Since some countries write the date as month/day/year and others write day/month/year, wouldn’t it get confusing? Does 3/6/22 mean March 6th or June 3rd? The few times I’ve written the date at their request, I spell out the month to avoid confusion. :thinking:

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Yes, but I have learned to know the way people from different countries write it! :relieved: Postcrossing has taught me so much. Europeans write the date differently than Americans and Asians. At first it was confusing to understand.

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I do this as well because the temperature fluctuates so much in the day…. 26C at 10:14 as an example. If it is so hot early in the day, this is my way to stress it.
This month a card I received had the day and the low/high forecast, I thought it was so unique that I did a few to demonstrate the range as well,
It just depends.

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Plus we use farenheit for temp…I have no clue what it would be in celcius without using a conversion chart!

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The postmarks are often illegible - or even missing.
Just checked:
Out of my last 23 received cards, the place name was legible on 10, the date on 11 cards.
Also:
Not everybody posts their cards from where they wrote them! Many Polish postcrossers post their cards from Germany, because postage costs only half as much over there :wink:
And:
Deutsche Post :de: actually no longer puts placenames on their postmark. Instead they just put the number of the sorting station - like “Briefzentrum 22” or sth. like that. Some of those postmarks include a city name, but not all of them do - and even if, this doesn’t have to be the city where the card was sent from!!!

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Actually there seems to be only about a 50% chance of this (or closer to 0% if you write from Canada) - as the postmarks are often illegible or even missing (:canada:).

And sometimes the writing on the postmarks is in Chinese :cn: or another language that may not be easily decioherable for everybody.

If I write the weather / temperature, I write down the current + (approx.) time. If it’s evening / night time and partly cloudy I draw moon behind cloud instead of sun behind cloud. Example: :sun_behind_small_cloud: 31°C, 2PM.

When writing to another country than my own, I will write day, month (not as number, but first 3 letters), year. 25 AUG 2022. Everyone will get that right :wink:

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Good question. I usually go with the predicted high for the day - if I write in the morning, as I most often do.

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