Experiences as a newbie

Postcrossing General Topics
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Incoherent thoughts.

I’ve selected and written four of my first five cards, and will post those tomorrow. It has been a fun, but somewhat frustrating experience.
I discovered PC just a few days ago, and didn’t have any cards at all to send. Fortunately I picked up a shoe box of unused cards at work on Saturday, I doubt I’ll use most of them, but some will do. I got a few that we sell as well. I still don’t have any suitable stamps.
We don’t have many places in the small town where I live that sell postcards, there’s a café where I saw some, and there’s a gallery that probably has a few as well. Neither of these places will sell cheap cards tough, but I’ll get a few. And I’ll be supporting local businesses which is always nice. A charity thrift store may have some, but I usually work when they are open. My boss is amused by this though so he’ll be ok if I go shopping for a bit.
I’ve ordered on-line from a couple of places, but those will obviously take a while to arrive.

The experience of drawing my first addresses was strangely exciting. I loved reading the profiles and trying to think of a good card, I’m beginning to understand those who claim they like sending even more than receiving.
I think I was mostly ok with matching picture with addressee for a couple of the cards, one was a stretch and the fifth will be a challenge. I have nothing good at all for them. I do realise that any card is better than no card, but I can’t help feeling a little disappointed that I didn’t have better cards. If I don’t find something tomorrow for my final recipient, I’ll just pick something not too terrible.

I am proud though that I managed not to write about the same things on those I’ve finished though, :slight_smile:
My hand writing is, uhm not great though, so what I write may not matter much anyway if the recipient can’t even read it in the first place. I tried though, I really did!

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Hello Bo.

Great that you’re here and you already learned about one of the most extensive long term discussions in Postcrossing: User profiles with ambitious wish lists and people who use Postcrossing as a source for expanding their collection.
First of all: you started perfectly! One can never repeat the basic Postcrossing rule often enough: Send a postcard and receive another postcard in return. You can, but you don’t have to fulfill any demands for specific postcards. You only have to send: a postcard. Not less, not more. Relax. Postcrossing is a game and you will meet a lot of wonderful people. And you will also meet some others too. That’s life and sometimes Postcrossing seems to me like a Shakespeare act: comedies, drama, tragedies and love stories. The whole bunch of human chaos and great meetings all over our colourful globe.
Welcome here, Bo!

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Hi Claas
thanks for the welcome and very good points.

I know I should just pick a good and and send it, but it’s fun trying to pick one you hope will be truly appreciated. Part of my (fairly mild, tbh) frustration was that I thought I had a specific card that would have been great, but I didn’t. I’m sure pretty much all of you have experienced something similar at some point.

This seems like such a nice hobby, just sending and getting cards, and while other hobbies, like philately touch upon it, it’s not really the major point.

I’m sure I’ll have fun with this for years to come.

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Oh how your post brought back memories of my first few days on Postcrossing Bo! Thank you for sharing so honestly. It was refreshing!

Yes its awhole lot of fun and you feel a little nervous too - wanting to connect with people and make it perfect!

Yet our fellow Postcrosser put it perfectly when he wrote:

And you know what I found out Bo? Everyone I sent a postcard too was happy they got a postcard! ALOT of grateful people here, you’ll see!

Have fun!
That’s what it’s all about🙂

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Hi Nique,
Great that I could bring back some fond memories :smiley:

I know I will be happy to receive any card at all. Coming home a late afternoon after work, tired and hungry and finding a card or two from distant lands, hopefully with a friendly little greeting too. I can see myself becoming addicted to that.
And perhaps best of all - no pressure to reply to someone quickly (apart from registering the card) or even draw a new address. All at my own pace.

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Hello, Bo! High five from another newbie :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed:t2:
You know what? Fellows above have already written much of good and true points, but I wanted to add something interesting from my own.
Changing cards officially and here with forum members brought some interesting insights to me. Firstly, as for me (and for a lot of other people) this is all not about pictures on cards only.
Secondly - recently I received a card which was the second one sent by this person (so they were a newbie as well), this card wasn’t following themes I mentioned in my “about” (because I even could not think of that theme at all) but it still remains my favourite one.
So, maybe your card from a shoebox will be a very special one for someone, who knows, while you are disappointed you haven’t had smth from “a list”.
Welcome to this new wonderful galaxy :slight_smile: I wish you many great stories and adventures here. You’ll see they are just about to happen!

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I add just one remark: Some people consider the message the most important piece of the card. That‘s why we should try to write in a way others can read the message :wink: it may need some practice to handwrite as we all are used to typing, but it is well worth the effort.

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Hi Anna, :raised_hand:
I think you are absolutely right about that. A card in my shoebox that I don’t care that much for, may be perfect for someone else - and they many not even realise it until they get it :wink:
It’s possible, right?

And yes, I understand people like this hobby for different reasons, but at the end of the day I think everyone must at least like getting postcards in the mail… Regardless of the picture.
So I will try not to focus too much on that. If I have one that fits someone’s wishes, great. If not, well at least they will get a card of some sort.

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I really try, I do :wink:
I don’t think they turned out completely illegible, but I do have to work at it. Hopefully, my handwriting will improve with time.

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Hello Bo and Anna, I have nothing meaningful to add to the discussion except to welcome you both to the wonderful world of Postcrossing! Bo you’re so nice to try and meet people’s wishlists, but don’t worry too much about it. I hope you’ll both have fun here. :slight_smile: Greetings from Hong Kong!

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Thank you scrutiny. I’m sure I will have lots of fun doing this.

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Hi,
I am newbie too, sent out my first 5 cards in 21-st December. There were just some Christmas cards to buy in our Post Office, nothing about our town or at least about the country. I even didn’t know about writing and haven’t any proper circumstances to write- in the Post Office, with mask on my face and fogged glasses, without English dictionary… And the queue on the street, waiting to enter (just 4 people allowed at the same time). That is how I started 2 weeks ago.

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Hi Silvia,
That sounds a lot more difficult than it has been for me, but I hope you are having fun too.
I work in a used books store in a small town here in Sweden. There used to be quite a lot of postcards, the touristy kind mostly, with pictures of castles, old houses, fields of golden wheat and impossibly blue skies and so on. Now, there are almost no new cards printed. We sell a few, and I’m talking about two or three different kinds and often talk about how it’d be great if we had a few more. But I’m going off-topic here.

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What all the others said, and: welcome to postcrossing to all beginners (and an alpine Servus for the ‘old’ others.)

Never ever take it too serious that the fun is spoiled, but always, even when you have one of the very few annoying experiences, focus on the joy this project makes possible.

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Hi Bo,

Firstly, welcome! It reminds me of how it was like when I first started, with just a stack of unused postcards thinking that it would be a great pile to start off with. And then I drew my addresses and read the profiles, and I realised I couldn’t really fulfil most of the themes because all I had were ad cards and touristy cards.

But as some have already pointed out above, while it is great to fulfil a theme, it is not mandatory. I know the satisfaction you get when you find the ‘perfect’ postcard for someone, but you’ll never know, your random postcard that didn’t fit the theme might just be the receiver’s favourite. I remember adding more themes I would like to receive after receiving some postcards I never thought I’ll like. Likewise, you might think you have the perfect card for someone, but that person might not like it that much for some reason. Humans are a weird bunch to understand. :rofl:

That said, perhaps you can explore obtaining your postcards online. There are quite a few sites that provide cheap and good postcards I’m sure.

I have been buying postcard packs of different themes, so that I can fulfil the various popular themes such as space, cats, ballet, flowers… Now I have thousands of cards in stock. :sweat_smile:

Also, don’t throw away those that you think no one would like. Sometimes there are Postcrossers who like these cards - weird postcards, old postcards, postcards that no one else wants. That’s your time to send them.

You can also use these postcards in the Activities portion of the forum, in tags like “Taking out the Trash”, “Totally Weird” and “Ad Cards”. Someone out there will appreciate it; it might just take a while.

I would say, enjoy the journey as much as you can, as Postcrossing is not meant to stress you out even more. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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I’m new here too. And I already picked four addresses to send postcards. Problem is that I don’t have any postcards at home :sweat_smile:
At least I have stamps :joy:

Ordered some on the Internet but it still takes a while until they’re here.
So first thing tomorrow is trying to get some postcards…guess it will be hard during the lockdown when most of the stores are closed.

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Newsstands at public transport terminals like railway stations might be a good place. Churches have some cards sometimes, as have tourist offices. Or maybe your local Fasnet-union (yes, I admitt, I checked your village :innocent:)
Have a nice walk.

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Hi Bo,

welcome to Postcrossing and the forum.

I am sending you a PM.

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Thanks…But I’m going to pick the car. :joy:
There’s really not much here in the village.

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And don’t worry too much about the postcards. I’ve pretty much gone through all the local postcards here, so I buy a lot of different ones online, and then try as much as possible to kind of match with what people would like. It means I send a lot of postcards not really connected with Denmark or Copenhagen, but people always seem to appreciate whatever I find for them :blush:.

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