How would you define a "rare country"?

What is your criteria to consider a country “rare” in the postcrossing scene?

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The low number of members from this country in Postcrossing?

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I’d say anything with a four digit ID number (or lower) was a very rare one.

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Anything other than USA, Germany, Russia or China :man_shrugging:t2:

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The low ID number is the common “measurement”. For me in particular, I’d also add countries from which I’ve never received before, even when the ID has more than four digits :slightly_smiling_face:

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Today I got my first card from Ukraine after 4 years. I would call that a rare country.

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Is Turkey rare country btw? :slight_smile: I just wondered

Definitely! Cards from Ukraine have become quite rare recently! After a long time I received two last month.

Yes. Of all my cards (~800) only one is from Turkey.

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That’s the best answer XD I feel so bad be in Germany as well XD sorry about that XD

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No reason to feel guilty! :slightly_smiling_face: All four are big countries with relatively inexpensive postal rates, so the situation makes perfect sense.

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Rare is less than 200,000 cards sent on postcrossing - for me.

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I guess a country with less members. Countries like Germany and Russia for example have a lot of people. (I have nothing against Germany and Russia) I don’t know a country off hand that has less people though

I wondered about this while ago too, and I think it is hard to say what makes the country rare, because there are sending trends that change over time. Like it was already mentioned about Ukraine: sometimes rare countries become popular and popular countries become rare, but if the country once was popular it will show to have lot of sent cards but it will still be rare to receive one at that time. Same with user amounts. Some countries might show to have lot of users, but they are sending less cards. It all changes over time.

So I would say that if the country shows up on “traveling” list less than once a month, then it is a rare (at the moment at least), and if it has four or five digit ID then it is extra rare, and if it is 3 or less digit ID I will just be really impressed and surprised about receiving such a card and bit sad because I will know that miracle will never happen again.

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Am I from rare country or not?

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I would say yes

So Finland, Netherlands, Taiwan, Canada, Czech Republic are rare? Interesting!

Maybe not for you, but they are for me.

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If you check the statistics on site about 80.7% of sent cards come from 15 countries. The remaining 19.3% is divided among the rest of the world… for me there are uncommon, rare and (currently) impossible to receive from, since they have no active members.

I would consider Greece medium-rare (pun intended!) given the fact that we havent reached 80,000 sent. But I recently received one from my own country which seems like a “waste” of an uncommon country card! (nothing is a waste of course! but you get my point!)

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I got really invested in that “labelling” procedure, so according to Explore>Countries (arrange descending according to sent) our steak/postcard comparison (Im sorry to my vegetarian friends) would look like:

1-15 Well done!
16-30 Medium-well
31-45 Medium
46-60 Medium-rare
60-125 Rare
126+ Blue…

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Low users from said country, how many cards have been sent from said country, less you get that country in your requests.

A card from any country or territory in Africa, Oceania, South America, Asia (excluding China, Russia, and Taiwan), the Caribbean.