How have you changed from being a newbie to having sent out hundreds of postcards

Just curious. For those that have sent out and received hundreds of postcards, how have you changed? Has the reason you started still the same? Are you still excited when you send out/receive a postcard? Is you enthusiasm the same?
What has changed, what has stayed the same?

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This is a great question!

My biggest one is acknowledging that 3 stamps can equal 1 international stamp and despite it taking more room, thus less room to write, most members prefer multiple/unique stamps.

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The fun is still the same. I even find myself taking even more care about choosing a card to send out. Finding the one card that I think will make the receipiant most happy.

On the receiving side I find that there are cards I like more than others. However after all the back of the card is what makes it special.

After more than 7 yeara spend on Postcrossing and having almost 3k cards received I am still so excited about the profile I get next, the Hurray Message I get and about what is waiting in my mailbox :blush:

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This is the 2nd time today I’ve seen this phrase used and have never seen it before. What is this?

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It’s the email message you get when a card is received, which has Hurray in the subject line.

For me, the big change since starting postcrossing is that I now own hundreds of blank cards!

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It’s the “thank you” message. The mail you receive telling you that a card you send has arrived its destiny and it was registered. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thank you! That’s what I thought!

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Totally agree @helent I too now have hundreds of blank postcards. I also am more aware of where post offices and mailboxes are locally. My family enjoys seeing the received postcards and friends will often ask how Postcrossing is going.

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I don’t think I’ve changed that much in terms of my enthusiasm. I still really enjoy sending postcards. Sure, I enjoy receiving them, too, but I still enjoy sending more. I might be more careful now with how I choose the postcard and what to decorate and write on it, especially as I’ve amassed a variety of postcards and craft supplies that allow me to match people’s wishes.

I am, however, far more guarded about how much I show off what postcards I have received. I’ve been roundly chastised before for showing any of my sent postcards, even after blacking out addresses and sender’s information. Some people are absolutely draconian about privacy even though they’ve sent me a postcard and now it’s mine. But I guess I have to respect that.

I suppose I’m a little more cynical, too. A small part of me is waiting for any day now for someone to get mad at me again for posting at all about postcards on Twitter or my blog.

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OH! And I’ve learned to put the stamps on before writing the address out so I don’t end up covering the address with stamps.

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I started off thinking this was a great way for me to build my collection. Now I’m much more interested in sending postcards than receiving. I try to fulfill wishes to the best of my ability and the exciting hurray messages make my day!

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I 2nd this notion!

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What has changed: I have lots of cards at home, I am more patient concerning travel times, I don’t have to have the maximum amount of cards travelling all the time, I have “repeated countries” -option on and I am here in the forum. :smile:
What hasn’t changed: enthusiasm!

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This must come only with experience. I try to tell myself it’s fine to wait until later to send another but then I get itchy fingers and just HAVE to click that little box… :joy:

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I don’t expect that every received postcard will be from somewhere exciting. I find the excitement in other things - the card someone chose for me, the stamps they put on it, the message they wrote, their handwriting, decorations …

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I don’t think I have changed much, if at all :slight_smile: I am always happy to write a card (I don’t take an address if I’m not in the right mood for writing) and I am always so childlishly happy to receive a postcard, or a few, or even many at once :hugs:

Maybe I have more postage stamps at home nowadays.

Oh, and now I don’t start my cards “I got your address from Postcrossing” which I wrote in few first cards.

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Honestly, I can’t remember the exact reason I started, haha, but I still love it and I still really love to send and receive cards! I have a huge stockpile of cards now and I made mail art into a real hobby, so I can send better wishlist-related things now

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I realised that I love to send and receive cards from my own country and enable this option recently :relaxed:

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Just hundreds of blank postcards? I realised I’m well over a thousand now, with three more box sets on the way. And I have so many stamps!

My enthusiasm is still the same as at the beginning. I love receiving postcards, but infinitely prefer sending them, that exciting moment when my finger hovers over the box to ask for a new address, who will it be, what can I send them?

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Hm… I guess I have learnt a lot of things like what maxicards are, that not everybody likes viewcards (this is still surprising to me!), that there are a gazillion more types of postcards than I ever thought existed, I guess I learnt bits and pieces about philately too.

I also have stocks of cards rather than just buy a couple every now and then, as I thought I would do when I joined…

Being excessively money-conscious has helped me a lot in that, I hardly ever filled all my slots even when I had a low allowance… I do send a lot more now because I am somewhere where it’s crazily cheap, really worried to when I will unavoidably return to somewhere expensive…

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