Expired Postcards

At the moment, about 50 per cent of the postcards I send out are expired. I have the feeling it’s getting worse and worse. The fun of postcrossing is slowly going to zero.

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Why do you have a feeling it’s getting worse and worse?
You have expired that are still registered later.
At one point I felt so many to USA expired, but it turned better.
Now the same is China again.
I have 6 expired to China and 6 to USA, but now to USA the card seem to travel better.
Do you have certain countries the expired are going to?

And if the fun level is close to zero, maybe have a pause.

That’s the situation.
post

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I’m noticing a lot more expired cards myself in my own slots.

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:sob:

Ok, to me it looks normal.
I don’t see nothing telling it turning worse and worse (like one common country turning mostly expired, like for me USA was at one point).

These can still be registered.

(I am confused about what you mean the 50 per cent you send getting expired, do you count also the ones that are registered, or only the ones that are expired at the moment? For example between March - September, 167 your sent cards are registered, and the expired (that still are expired) from this time are 10, so that’s only about 6 per cent. Am I thinking this differently from you?)

I understand that it can feel annoying to see the expired, but as it has happened, these can be registered still. And now when many countries don’t send to Russia and Belorus, you get more these, especially some part of Russia can be slow, maybe this makes this feel “worse”.

But you can be happy if this is unnormal many expired to you, at least, if you want to look the bright side :slight_smile:

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My life experience has shown me that believing, hoping and waiting lead to nothing.

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I went a year with almost no expired cards. Then, there were three relatively close together that expired. I send second cards to all of them, which were each registered as quickly as originally expected.

If the recipient has been registering other cards, but not the one you sent a long time ago, it’s likely lost. You might consider a second one to some of those people who are active members; I think those will be registered.

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Oh no :frowning: Chin up, waiting has lead to your cards getting registered, also you getting cards, it’s not been bad things only. Hope and believe then, I have to agree, things don’t happen how much you hope. I send you my compassion :hugs:

Maybe hide the expired?

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I’m having an expiration rate of about 4 % in 2023 so far. All of the postcards I sent on September 10th expired, 2 to the U.S., 1 to Russia. Another one to the U.S. (now at 45 days of travelling) is likely to be lost. Don’t know what I should think about it.

Are these people registering cards from others since you sent one to them? If yes, yours was lost in the post.

Thanks for being interested/getting back to me.
It honestly depends.
The russian member seems to register in batches (1-4 cards per time). She didn’t register anything since late October (She is due to about 15 postcards)
The other 2 U S. postcrosser are registering their received cards regularly. One of them is even having a ‘received’ travelling time for cards from my country (Austria) of 15 days (on average).

I saw some comments about sending a second card. Is that normal? I don’t know about the prices in your country but in The Netherlands postage stamps are not fun to buy anymore. And from next year even more expensive. For normal postcrossing it is already expensive enough, let alone if i will send (currently 3) new cards to every expired one. I’m just waiting and hoping my expired cards will arrive some day. :sweat_smile:

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No, that is not normal and it is also unnecessary.
If a card expires, the recipient’s address will go out again and they will receive a card from another person instead of yours.
Nevertheless, there is of course nothing to stop you from sending a second card, but probably very few users do this.

50% is crazy. I had one post card from Alaska to Arizona take 188 days. Must’ve been stuck in a bin or something.

I used to send a 2nd card. I decided not to now. It’s all up to you, your finances, your time, desires etc

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I’m really confused as to how people calculate the % expired cards.

The way I’ve been calculating it is :
number on my expired list (60-365days) divided by (number sent and registered in last 365 days + number on expired list )
which for me is 4 (on my expired list) / (147+4) = 2.7%. I didn’t think that this is too bad!

But when I do the same for you I get 10 /(256+10) = 3.8%
This is higher than my rate but not the 50% that you quoted. Are you able to tell me how you did your calculation that came up with 50%? Am I doing the maths wrong?

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When I have a look on my traveling cards, there are 19 cards. 10 of them are actually expired. That’s the way I regard this problem. Other methods of counting are possible. But everything else is too complicated for me.
The number of cards that are registered after 60 days can be counted on one finger.

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Ah, Ok, thanks
For me, your method would become very variable because the cards that are received within 60 days are excluded from the calculation. Many of my European cards are delivered within a couple of weeks, and I’m not very consistent in the number of cards I send per week, so on a lower sending week my expired will be a much bigger proportion of my total travelling as the quick ones will have been delivered and not replaced in the list. It would also depend on destination (If I pull more China and Russia that stay on my travelling list longer, but haven’t expired, then my expired will look better).

Maybe if you are more consistent than me it works better and it’s certainly simple to calculate. It would definitely make me depressed though ( 4 expired 8 travelling and unexpired = 33% expired)

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I just reached 100 sent, and even if many cards become expired I still have a 100% registration rate! I just wait and they eventually get registered

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