Expired Postcards

Oh, I’m glad that I’ve found this topic… I haven’t sent postcards for a long long time and was just wondering if I could try to get back to it…

Here I learnt about the postcrossing monitor and that Brazil isn’t sending cards to 180 countries including Australia, China and Russia!

Maybe I should wait some more to start again… oh well…

1 Like

Postcrossing won’t give you addresses to the destinations that Brazil can’t send mail to at the moment — that’s the main goal of the Postal Monitor! :slight_smile:

7 Likes

@paulo thanks… I may try to get back soon! :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Mine first will also go probably to expired. I sent it to the USA and member is active. I’m a little sad but that’s the part of it. Maybe it will turn up someday.

2 Likes

Today I received cards from Ukraine and Russia. Both members drew my address on July. Both stamp’s cancellation date are on September.
Maybe they can’t send card on July because of lockdown, or maybe post office just processed the card late because of lockdown causing chaos in work field.
Don’t give up on your card.
Dear @paulo and @meiadeleite, are there any chances that the card sent during covid-19 get more than 1 year traveling time?

2 Likes

As much as we all wish we could predict how the covid-19 situation is going to unfold in the future, nobody knows exactly.

A large part of the mail routes were (and some still are) affected, primarily, by delays or erratic travel times. The 1 year travel limit should be enough for routes with delays. I think anything arriving after 1 year was not just delayed but was probably withhold due to a suspended mail route.

Right now, we don’t have any plans to extend the maximum travel time beyond 1 year. But we’ll continue to see how things progress in the coming months. For the moment, keeping the Postal Monitor up to date helps avoid postcards getting into routes that may cause them to be on hold and expire.

2 Likes

In all my postcrossing years, I may have resent about 10 cards.
I don’t do it anymore.

I received an expired card from Cameroon after 150 days. It was sent to me back in March of this year.

Like most of us here, I register the cards whenever they are received, expired and all.

Since expired cards are part of our postcrossing experience, I don’t like when postcrossers reach out to ask me to register an expired card they sent to me and I didn’t receive. It says it clear in my profile and yet they ask. My answer is always NO.

How do you all handle that question?

The rules are strictly saying that you should never register a card you didn’t receive, and I stick to that rule. I also don’t register things that aren’t postcards, according with the rules. Or cards that have way too less postage on them (like a single 1ct stamp).

@helent This is the first time I’ve seen the word ghostcrosser, and even if you didn’t invent it, I’m giving you the credit anyway! :rofl:

@Axolotl_, maybe this is a dumb question I’m asking, but…

…how do cards even arrive if they have insufficient postage? I just assume no one will deliver my card if I’ve skimped on stamps. :frowning:

Definitely not my word! Just something I’ve seen used in all the discussions about expired cards.

1 Like

I think that the machines just check if there’s a stamp, not the stamp value! It was a ATM printed stamp, so maybe these can’t be checked due to custom values anyway. :thinking: We have some people here who work with mail and might know more details!

1 Like

Somehow, the stamps aren’t checked very well, it seems. Postcards arrive with a 1 cent stamp.
Once I accidently mailed a postcard without a stamp. I had one stamped and one unstamped postcard at home. And then I was going for a walk, and thought “Oh, I can bring the postcards”, forgetting that I needed a stamp on one of them. Dropped them both in the mailbox and then remembered the missing stamp. THe postcard did arrive, despite the lack of a stamp…

1 Like

Some postal operators check for stamps more strictly than others.

And while sometimes it may go through at the origin, the destination postal operator may still charge a fine to the recipient to have it delivered. If you ever seen a stamped T letter on a circle on a postcard, this is usually to signal that there’s insufficient postage.

3 Likes

Currently I have 4 expired cards, one to Japan (but that one I took some time to find one wish card related and then the post stopped delivering to Japan for a long time), one to Portugal (what’s odd because it normally doesn’t take so long), one to Russia (this one is probably withhold somewhere) and another to Germany - and this one actually worries me, it usually doesn’t take so much time to get there and the Postcrosser in question last seen dates 9 months ago, I wonder if she’s ok.

On the other hand, almost every card delieved to me have expired. This year Brazilian Post had a long strike, some workers got sick, in sum, a lot of things caused lots of delays.

@siobhan, I just realised you sent a card to me! :smile:

3 Likes

Well… I’m from Sweden, a scandinavian country and I agree the post is slower these days with the pandemy going on. I had 5 cards expired, but two of them reached their destination after being expired, so now I have 3 expired. One to USA, one to Russia and one to the Philippines. One card to Russia was travelling for 174 days. It was a little bit funny, cause it was first returned to me… but I resent it and it reached the destination.

I have a card to Germany which has been travelling for 40 days now. The user has been online a few times after, but not registered any cards. That is very annoying! A card usually takes maximum 7 days to Germany from here. That will probably expire.

All in all. It takes much longer than usually. But it has improved since april may when it was superslow!

How does one find out if a postcard intended for you expires? Does Postcrossing alert the receiver? Is that why some people list their expired cards on their profile?

In my case I meant that most of the postcards I received this year had delays over 60 days, therefore, expired - but I could register all when they finally arrived. I only knew they had expired when I got them and saw the date.

No. At least, not that I know.

I think those expired cards listed are cards sent by those people that didn’t reach the receiver yet.

1 Like

Thank you, that makes sense! I’m new to Postcrossing so still learning the ropes :slight_smile:

If the postcard can arrive at the destination instantly when it is sent, is “receiving/sending postcards” still romantic?

If it is sent, it is guaranteed to arrive. Then, is “receiving/sending postcards” still fascinating?

The fun and risk of “receiving/sending postcards” exist at the same time, and the two are interdependent and complement each other.

You cannot choose one of them.

This is part of the game, enjoy it!

7 Likes

I never resend. I sometimes write the member, if he/she is active if he/she don’t recall the postcard I sent. I am scanning all the postcards, so I know what I sent. Sometimes it is can be missed out in a batch. But once she sent she haven’t got such card. I was sad as it was indeed very nice one. And I had no troubles with deliveries to Finland! CZ-1687003 found the way after 142 days, while I sent two cards later, and those were delivered earlier. I am glad it reached the destination!

So, don’t lose hope, maybe they will be registered in very late time, but will be. Worse is, if it is not active member anymore. Those make me sad.

1 Like