Expired Postcards

Thank you @yudi

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A card of mine that had been travelling for 112 days finally arrived at itā€™s destination yesterday. I had a lovley message from the recipient explaining that it had travelled to her in Indonesia via the Caymen Islands! Itā€™s made funnier by the fact the card has a message about adventure on the front, it certainly had one of those!

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What do you think happens? Do people abandon Postcrossingsā€¦ like they open an account, but then donā€™t use it? Do you think they genuinely just get lost by the postal system? I just started with Postcrossings a few months ago. I have my first expired card. Kind of sad!

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Both things happen very frequently. People abandon postcrossing sometimes without registering what has been sent to them.
But also postal system are imperfect, always have been, always will be, and the pandemic has made it worse.
I had 11 cards expired in 2020, only one was to someone who never logged in again (and anyway he registered stuff that was sent after mine, so maybe he really never received mine), all the others were to active members. One of them was registered last week at 217 days, sent last July.

Itā€˜s not a question but I wanted to share my feelings about expired Postcards:

This Card seems to be lost. It is very sad because I choose such pretty postage stamps, I picked one of my cutest Postcards which seems so fitting and I did my little washi flags to bring joy to this particular postcrosser and it just disappears. I really got Upset when I had to realize that. :cry:

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I think I feel that way too, knowing that some of these cards I really pour my heart into and they may never make it to their destination. Furthermore, I think about a person who does receiveit and trashes it because they quit Postcrossings. That feels even worse. :weary:

:see_no_evil: That would be terrible! What if someone actually received a card but is not willing to register it, because the card doesnā€™t fit their wishlist or demands. :eyes: But Iā€™m pretty sure that they are cards which just got lost on their journey. :arrow_heading_down: :hole:

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Tomorrow will be the day of my first expiring. 59 days today, 60 tomorrow. China.
Nearly the reason to celebrate, eh?! :relaxed:

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I have three expired postcards :pensive: two of the users havenā€™t logged in for more than a month, and the third logs in about two weeks or so and registers some cards, but mine hasnā€™t been one of the lucky ones.

I didnā€™t register a card because I (or someone in my household) misplaced it :flushed: I was in the process of moving in 2014, and somehow an unregistered card made its way to one of the moving boxes. I just checked one of those boxes this year, and found it at the bottom of the box. But now it canā€™t be registered.

Also, a few weeks ago, my mail was slipped under my apartment door, and then we learned that the buildingā€™s mailbox was broken and they were fixing it. We donā€™t know who slipped the mail under our door - a neighbour who noticed the mailbox was broken? The buildingā€™s super? The postal worker? And I canā€™t help but wonder if some cards might have got lost in that process :thinking: I hope not.

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It is false, from India there is no shipment to Russia, yet I got Russian address and Iā€™m skeptical about the delivery of my postcard.

I am in an RR with Indian members and at the end of February they said Mailservice to Russia has resumed. They were asked about this as there are also Russian members in this RR.
So unless it has changed again in the last week you should be fine

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I would mark it in my journal for sure. :writing_hand: Maybe there is still hope for your card to reach itā€™s destination. :four_leaf_clover:

Receiver is seen 18 days ago.

In 2020, I mailed out 148 cards. 125 were received and 23 expired, so quite a high perceentage of expired cards. Its possible some may still arrive. Normally my expired cards run at about 6%, so Iā€™m only sending out a few now and then this year until things return to normal.

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I am approaching 6 months of PC, and Iā€™ve enjoyed it so much. Yesterday, my first expired postcard reached 60 days. Sad, because it was sent to a high school geography class in Norway, which was my favorite subject in school (yearrrrsss ago!)ā€”but our hobby is in the (many) hands of the worldā€™s postal systems, and I have high hopes of it arriving eventually to those students. I still love geography, and now I can share my enthusiasm of it with my grandchildren through PC; our received cards are accompanied by searching my old globe I had as a child. Anyway, I read through this discussion and found the advice above to ā€œwait until the next dayā€ to request another address. Iā€™m at 61 days, and it still says I canā€™t send another card yet. Should I wait another day? As I said, this is my first experience (I just enjoy writing postcards!).

Another question to the more experienced: Iā€™ve read the discussion here of messages requesting/demanding faux registrations, and I really donā€™t understand the senderā€™s motivation to get the ā€œnon-receiverā€ to register the card anyway. Hasnā€™t the sender been ā€œreleasedā€ to send another card?! Itā€™s not as if the card will appear if it truly is lost in transit, and a fake registration benefits neither the sender or the receiver. Perhaps it is just the nature of some for everything to be resolved in life, even though reality says it isnā€™t.

If the senderā€™s card is ā€œregisteredā€, theyā€™ll get a card from another member in return.

I donā€™t know why you canā€™t send another card for your expired one yet. Does it say (expired) in your traveling cards list?

Yes, it says expired, 61 days

Then I donā€™t understand it either, Iā€™m sorry. :frowning:

It might be because of the timezones. I noticed it with one of my expired cards. It had reached 60 days of travel just before midnight (here in Germany) and just a little over one hour later it was expired without actually having travelled an extra 24 hours. Wait for 3 more hours and see if tiā€™s expired then.

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Thanks! I must repeat to myself, patience, patienceā€¦