I am very sorry that my post causes you so much distress, @elikoa. And I am very sorry as well that I wasn’t able in the first time to find the million discussions here in this forum about that topic. (I checked first!)
Again, I wasn’t aware that mail to and from Russia is blocked by so many states. I was only stating my personal experience and I did not want to generalize. I am totally aware that people in other countries get a lot of German addresses.
It’s an interesting topic but I honestly haven’t spent much time thinking about it, until now.
At the moment, I have the repeated countries option clicked on, and I get many names in Germany.
But last month I turned it off, and still got many names in Germany. It’s just the way it is right now. There’s a war, and as a result, there are mail restrictions in many country affecting the algorithm.
Here is my travelling cards, about half to Germany.
Here’s page 1 of my sent cards, also mostly to Germany.
I actually would like to see if I can get an entire page filled up with only cards to Germany, that would be interesting to see.
Some day we will look back at this time period and it will seem so different.
For half a year I was getting exclusively Russian addresses. I sent maybe 40 during that time. But there has been a lot more variety recently. Even comparing to pre-war times. These are my travelling cards at the moment.
Yes, I agree it’s good to be very cautious.
In my own experience on the subject, do the research before purchasing, and communicate with the seller. I have not purchased stamps from eBay, but have from Etsy.
There’s some reliable sellers I have found on Etsy, and once in a rare while I find some that are selling unused old US stamps at face value. Most sellers, especially those who specialize, sell the stamps for a higher price, sometimes twice as much, which is a total rip-off, imho.
I really went to an estate sale, which was really a glorified yard sale, and got some old stamps for cheap, as well as awesome vintage postcards.
That’s how I feel about other countries too! I get a lot of cards to send to Germany and it’s very enjoyable for me. I have learned to celebrate the diversity in each nation.
I think sometimes when members are new to Postcrossing, it’s like a new relationship, and after the first year the relationship deepens and grows, or it does not.
Thank you for sharing your positive feelings about getting more cards in the USA!
Even though countries might be repeated, but recipients are not (unless they have multiple accounts)
I feel like sometimes we ought to zoom in a little. Instead of thinking of it as 20 Germans, I like to think of it as Lars from Hamburg, Sofia from Dusseldorf etc.
They’re different people and they all deserve a card that has had effort put into it
and there are probably even more than usual german adresses in the pool still from the Cards for Literacy campaign.
These (currently) 104,634 sent cards in december will all get a card back (with 28,266 still traveling) and we do always give our best to get as much cards written as possible so … lots of addresses to be drawn in december and january.
The last week I received about 15 cards and about 80% are from the USA and Canada. What’s going on? Was Postcrossing mentioned on the Graham Norton show or something?
The USA is a very active country on postcrossing and the more active a land is, the more likely it is you will receive a card (or more) from that country. The majority of my cards come from the USA or Germany.
Also it traditionally a month in which a lot of cards are registrated. The holidays are over, so people have more time to write. And holidaymail slows down everything, so the backlog of the cards send in that period are finally delivered.
But who knows, maybe it was on the news. Did you receive a lot of cards from new users?
Yesterday I got 6 from Russia and two from Germany, along with a cards from Kazakhstan. The Russian cards were sent:
1 in October
2 in November
2 in December
Germany mid December and week ago, Kazakhstan mid December.
You just never know what’s coming, which is the fun of it!
Frustrating to get all the Russian cards when I can’t send them any though.
I agree with the posts which currently notice a lack of variety.
I can only send 10 postcards at the same time.
The box “Check if you prefer to have several postcards traveling to the same country at the same time” is unticked on my profile.
The countries of the recipients are currently : Germany (2), Russia (4), United States (4).
Since the beginning of this year, I have received 14 adresses : Austria (1), Belarus (1), Germany (3), Netherlands (1), Russia (4) and USA (4).
If I compare with the ten last addresses of 2022, the result was more various : France (1), Germany (3), New Zealand (1), Portugal (1), Russia (1), United Kingdom (1), United States (2).
So, my ten current addresses are distributed between 3 countries while the ten last adresses of 2022 were distributed between 7 countries.
No offense to some, but, in my opinion, there is a current problem with the algorithm.
and I have the repeated countries option turned on so I get even more.
