About a year ago, nothing arrived in the USA in less than 50 days And my norm for Russia used to be a month, it has become so fast lately!
Italy is very erratic. Could take 10 days, could take 2-3 months. I sent LOTS of stuff to Italy (outside of official postcrossing, so arranged privately) in the first two weeks of December and they all started to arrive in the last week or so. I had started to wonder if I should resign myself to having lost about 10 envelopes! Even though I know mail is sslllooow. Also December and January have a lot of holidays so in Italy there are two full weeks when nothing much happens across Dec./Jan.
My first sent cards took 30-40 days. So there you go. I have a gazillion cards on the way but most of them are pretty slow. Unfortunately China can be very slow but on the way in and way out. So nothing to do but wait.
Yes, the waiting in the beginning is hard. Postcrossing teaches us patience though for sure.
Join the games on here in the Forum to send more postcards & generate more to receive while youāre waiting. Many of us have done this when we first started & it helped a great deal.
Thanks for your reply.
The time these poscards took shocked me deeply!
The fewer flights between the USA and China may be one of the reasons.
Hoping everyone can receive their postcards soon.
If it comforts you a bit, I received a postcard from China about last week. It was from a new postcrosser as well and they sent it off on 1st October! I sent a warm hooray message and thanked them. Itās a beautiful postcard. I really hope, they will continue with postcrossing.
The same I hope for you. Please, donāt be discouraged.
It is very slow to get started. We signed up in 2021 (Dec 3) and have just recently (Jan 2022) had cards start arriving. At present, we have sent 13 and received 7. Yours should start picking up soon!
It is very difficult to be patient. Quite honestly, we wish we could just send 15-20 cards right now and wait - - - BUT Postcrossing has these limits for a reason, soā¦ we just gotta wait.
In the meantime, you can check the Forums and see if thereās anyone seeking cards. We have sent a few cards to various folks asking for them for one reason or another. Itās not the same as sending official Postcrossing cards, but it does give you an opportunity to send a few here and there.
Happy Postcrossing & we hope your cards start arriving soon!
Hi and Thank you, Mychal and Tara!
Itās not surprising we share the same feelings.
Iām trying to teach myself to be patient and it seems to start to work.
Hope everyone can have good time postcrossing!
Letās turn our mailbox into a box of hope.
30-day is a commonplace when sending international letters via China Post even if one pays air mail fare. Also have a look whether your recipients are active recently. Now I have many traveling cards whose recipients are last seen in 1 monthā¦
As a newbie, I know the feeling! I just keep telling myself it will all work out soon enough and be worth all the patience and anxiousness. That is what makes postcrossing more fun than social media (my opinion). It isnāt instant gratification, and you have to wait a while I sent my first five cards and check my postcrossing twice a day! LOL No one has registered it yet, but I am optimistic it will all work out and I can keep sending Good luck to you!
A senior from my house sent me (in Germany) a postcard from the North of Italy in October '21
when he was on holidays there, it has not arrived yet unfortunately.
Donāt worry. Sooner or later, they show up. I know once these cards show up, register and send a few. Maybe consider trades and direct swaps and balance the two. Maybe send official cards once in a while. And trades in others.
Just seen that you live in China.
Suppose that flights from and to China donāt āworkā regular because of the pandemic.
Some of my cards sent to Chinese postcrosseres did not arrive for a very long time.
Did you write your adress - besides in Englisch letters - also in Chinese letters, so that the sender can print it out and fix it on the card? My experience is, that cards to China when the adress is written in English letters, the card takes really long to get delivered, and sometimes never doā¦ so please make sure to add your adress also in Chinese letters if you havenāt done up to now.
Once I forgot to write the ID-number on the card so the receiver could not registrate. Postcrossing could help, but itās more safe to make sure you always write the ID-number on the card.
Keeping my fingers crossed that you wonāt have to wait too long now for your first card - must be demotivating and fustrating to wait that long.
Hang in there! Patience! Even after a year and a half, some weeks I feel like a real Postcrosser getting a couple of postcards in my mailbox every dayāthen suddenly it takes weeks to get one! Certainly is a lesson in patience!
I am so sorry, @Treeinwinter. I feel your pain. I started on 1/19/22. All of my initial cards went from the US to Germany. Three of them were registered within 9 days. I consider myself very blessed because everything I read in the forums said to expect to wait around 30 days for cards to register when you first start.
I have been keeping myself busy by joining RRs and lotteries while I wait for my first card to arrive. I am really starting to enjoy the friends I am the making on forum. They are making the wait bearable with their stories and advice. I hope your cards register soon.
I just had the same thing happen with Italy. Three cards sent at different times in late November/early Decemberā¦to two different addresses in Italyā¦and all three arrived on the same day earlier this week! So funny. I did wonder how that happened.
I agree, it is very hard to wait for postcards in the beginning. I see that you are in China, my experience has been that postcards to and from your country and mine (USA) take a minimum of 30 days. Sometimes as long as 70 days. Iām not sure of travel time between China and other countries. . I hope your mailbox is filled very soon and that your long wait will be over.
And my norm for Russia used to be a month, it has become so fast lately!
Please, donāt be discouraged.
