Digital storage for blank postcards

Postcards & Mail Postcard chat!
#1

How do you store postcards that you use to send to other postcrossers?

Mine are currently ordered by theme (art, architecture, tourist, etc) in envelopes and then in a box. This doesn’t quite work for me because I always dread having to go through each envelope to choose the right postcard. I’d like to create some kind of digital storage for my collection where I scan the images. I think this would make choosing postcards much easier and quicker.

I have seen that some users have blogs which are like a digital gallery. There is also a new app My Postcards but I haven’t tried it.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you!

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#2

Mine are stored in the other I bought them (in batches) in boxes as I have a pretty good visual memory, but I’m likely going to need to re-store them by category soon.

I scan postcards as I use them & have an electronic file & I do use the online order summaries from the company I buy them from sometimes to find an image I haven’t used yet. I have been working my way through using my different postcards quite deliberately so have built up a decent file so far.

I’ve been meaning to do an electronic list of just names/categories as by & large I know what the images are by name.

There’s also some suggestions here too:

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#3

I only scan the postcards when I know they’re being sent to someone. Otherwise, the postcards are stored in boxes in a filing system by topic. I file any new loose postcards immediately in this system so they don’t keep sitting around in a pile getting bigger and bigger. Postcards in postcard books and postcard boxes are kept in those sets and treated like books, in terms of organization. I also have a fairly good memory so it doesn’t take me long to find a postcard I need.

#4

With Official Postcrossing, I usually scan the cards that I send out. I store my collection of postcards in archival quality photo boxes. I use alphabetical index card dividers with my US city views collection. So, all the city names that start with “A” behind divider “A” “B” behind “B” and so on. My international cards collection I usually insert the card into a plastic sleeve, and then put the cards in the photo box.

I do quite a bit of private trades in the Forum. For many years, I used this Photo Hosting site (subscription). But they are closing in about a week. I have transferred some of my folders to the new site: Zonerama.

#5

My physical cards (both collection and to-be-sent cards) are in postcard sheets (4 or 2 pockets in A4 size) and then put into ordinary file folders. My collection (view cards and Postcrossing meet-up cards) are sorted alphabetically first by country, then by city, while my to-be-sent cards are sorted by topic (Tausendschön, map cards, view cards, polaroid cards, art cards etc.).

All my to-be-sent cards and a significant part of my collection are scanned. I’m using an online catalog everyone can contribute to: https://colnect.com/postcards . Compared to Flickr etc. it has the benefit of decent sorting, filtering and search options - if I see a card in a wish list, I can very quickly find out if I still have it available to send or not. The drawback is that all that data required for searching and filtering needs to be entered when you contribute a new postcard, so it’s a bit more work than just uploading a scan. I don’t want to use any other service (it’s free, too!), but your mileage may vary.

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#6

I use a self hosted solution as I like to be as flexible as possible and don’t want any ads etc.

this is important for me, too. So I have a search option and titles for every card. I add tags every now and then to refine search and filter options.

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