The two most important things are this:
1 - The message. Send Joy. Send Love. Reach out and connect in some way.
2 - Just send it. Not all cards will survive the trip. Some cards will make it, but never get registered. Persevere. Just keep sending love.
The stamps and cards selection are nice to haves, not musts.
Just keep sending love.
The universe will pay you back.
Thanks for asking this! I’m new too and was wondering the same thing. Have been trying to wrap my head around postage etc, as up until now I’ve been taking them to the post office to send but with the new lockdown I’m looking to buy stamps instead so I don’t have to keep making the trip. And those ones are very boring ha. Royal Mail store have some beautiful ones but their P&P is expensive…
Yeah I know, I’ve started bulk buying once a year, I did an order just before the January price rise.
I have used Philatelink in Galashiels, they have been very good,
I have also used Ebay, but not the best kept condition stamps.
Don’t feel bad at all, I just write the cards and go at the Postal Office where I let the officer to put whatever stamo they have there. I would buy special, beautiful stamps but I’m just a broke student. XD. So no, it’s not bad, it’s normal :))
I am very, very sad that people even ask about this. It is a postcard and communication website, not a stamps community. In my early days when I only had access to boring stamps I never even questioned that. Then I got some fancy stamps because it was cheaper (philatelink when I was in the UK - I assume you checked it out and it’s among the ones that you say have sold out?) and I was even worried that it would make it more likely for the card to get lost as they didn’t look like the regular ones.
If I have nice stamps (and here in Singapore they all look nice and exciting…) I will use them for those who love them, but I don’t use multiple ones if I don’t need to etc.
I feel kind of bad when I get cards with lots of super shiny stamps as they are wasted on me… I guess some people think it’s a must (or that’s all they have, of course).
Yeah Philatelink is where I wanted to get them from because I’ve seen a lot of good reviews about them but yeah all sold out
I like all stamps and other (modern) franking methods.
We have barcodes, a nine-letter/number combination that you write on the card and stamps off course.
I do think that the barcode and letter/number combination are less ‘fun’ to use or receive. But they are quite novel ways to send mail.
I am a bit sad that the codes mean no stamps but I would like to get at least one done that way because it’s totally new to me!
It’s totally fine to use whichever stamps you have. I started Postcrossing in May last year and initially just bought some Queen’s head stamps. The postage rate at the time was £1.42 and I just used one stamp of that value. As I got more into Postcrossing, I bought some sheets of special stamps from the Royal Mail website. The current postal cost is 2 x 1st class stamps, so I have a range of different, interesting ones that I can use. I now use one special stamp and one England country definitive 1st class stamp (https://shop.royalmail.com/england-country-definitive-2018-1st-class-stamp). The National Parks stamps that are being released on 14th January look really nice and I will probably get some. The only problem with ordering direct from Royal Mail is that the delivery cost is extortionate unless you spend quite a lot.
Huh, in my country the delivery from stamps ordered by the site of the postal service costs nothing, my guess is because they come from the postal serivice itself, so no shipping payment necessary? The stamps are quite expensive, so I’m always grateful for that. Plus, usually if you order above like 15 euros you’ll get a set of postcards and matching stamps (that will usually cost about 5 euros) for free.
In November as experiment I added the stamps to the scanned upload of the postcard I was sending, just to see how well they looked on the wall
At that time the rate was £1.45 and with no stamp avaliable 1p and 2p stamp was added the existing £1.42 stamps.
Post & Go labels don’t display rate, so can be used even if the price increases
Depends on how much you wish to spend on the stamps/postage for the postcrossing project,
I didn’t order anything from Royal Mail for over year because of the postage, fortunately one of my local post offices will order the odd sheet of special stamps, which I am now usually offered when purchasing stamps and other products from the post office when I visit.
The annoying thing is that after about 3 months of the issue day, any left unsold are returned to RM at Edinburgh. I wanted some Sean Conery James Bond stamps which I bought back in April, but was told about this return policy
I recently placed a bulk order of the UK Country Definitives to obtain the free postage.
Won’t do that for at least a year
I did a bulk order for postcrossing in December when I ordered my Christmas stamps and am restricting myself to sending a maximum of 3 postcards per week, so technically I will spread the cost and won’t run out of stamps until Easter. I joined during the first lockdown and while I would like to support my local post office they only allow two people in at a time and so the queue is often 30-40 minutes, outdoors, which wasn’t much fun in summer and is going to be even less so in the freezing cold!
That sounds awesome! With Royal Mail, you have to spend £50 to get free delivery; below that amount they charge you something silly for special delivery. So it’s fine if you’re ordering enough stamps for 30+ postcards, but not worth it for less.
Did they raise their delivery costs? The last time they charged me £1,55 for delivery to Germany.
You might be able to ask your local Post Office to save you some of the special issue stamps when they come out - mine keeps me a sheet each time (although I’m now just going to ask for 1st class rather than £1.70).
If you can afford it all in one go, it’s easy to order from Royal Mail, and you can get some of the older ones this way. As others have said, it’s free delivery over a certain amount.
But any stamps are good…
I found this woman on Etsy recently: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ArtStamped?ref=usf_2020
Don’t know if anyone’s ordered from her? She has some beautiful stamps, wondering if it’s a good alternative whilst philatelink don’t have much stock (I did buy some fairly run of the mill second class ones from them last week)
That is alot of money for a small selection of mint stamps,
I’ve bought presentation packs and books of 12 1st class stamps in orginal mint conditon from Ebay for cheaper
To be honest I didn’t even fully register the prices, I just saw the pretty stamps 
yes they are pricey - probably better for scrapbooking or collection than postcrossing!
