Keeping getting the same countries (sending and receiving)

Probably just luck. Out of my 11 travelling cards at the mometn 4 are going o USA right now as well so it works the other way too. These countries (USA, Russia and Germany) I think are the highest volume senders so there are much more people partocipating in Postcrossing than from other countries. I have sent most of my cards to Russia, USA, Netherlands and Finland, in that order. :woman_shrugging: But you will et some other countries are well, at least I have. And when someting new does appear, it is even nicer!

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I found that when I hit 50 sent postcards, the variety of countries I was sending to significantly decreased. Before, I would rarely have two cards travelling to the same country. Now, 8 out of my 10 travelling postcards are going to Russia, the USA or Germany. I think it must be something to do with the algorithm.

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I think @geo_ is right, it is the algorithms, and that fact that Germany, Russia, and the USA are the top three participating counties by a difference of 3 million+ postcards sent. You can see the statistics on the Explore Postcrossing Countries page. Here are the top 4 countries. The first number is how many postcrossing members there are, and the second number is how many postcards they have sent.

Germany - 58,078 - 10,537,642
Russia - 115,317 - 7,749,994
United States of America - 70,889 - 7,410,970
Netherlands - 39,831 - 4,796,939

Germany is almost 3 million postcards in front of Russia, and the difference between the Netherlands and the USA is, again, about 3 million. The shear number of postcards sent by the members of these four countries dwarf all others. Even when you add the number of postcards sent by #5 Finland and #6 China, together, they still are less than the US, Russia, and Germany. For the algorithm to work, for every one postcard sent by someone in those 4 countries, someone has to send one back. It is no wonder that the vast majority of postcards

There is one thing you can do to decrease the number of postcards you have to Germany, USA, and Russia. In your preferences, disable or uncheck, “Check if you prefer to have several postcards traveling to the same country at the same time.” This will decrease the number sent to these four countries at the same time. That’s about all you can do.

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You can check this topic too:

In addition to the “normal” algorithms, Germany is busy with Postcard writing for charity. So there are a lot more addresses from Germany in the pool right now.

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It’s not just the amount if members these three top countries have. The pandemic is still a problem (nothing new, I know) which effects a lot of people in a bad way (healthily and financially). The other hiccups are infrastructure and political issues. Furthermore, not many countries have postcards, or a variety of them.

Postage can be an issue either. And when you check the postal monitor you will see that a lot of countries stopped transportation to certain countries. Postcrossers from these countries can’t do much about it.

Thanks to the forum, it dawns on me how lucky we are in Germany concerning postcards! It’s like living in a huge postcard shop.

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One day I realized I have a huge amount German postcards received, but only I think one or two time the same card, so that is true, it really has huge selection of cards, with good quality too, and not “only” tourism cards, but the art serie (?) “Inkognito” I seem to like a lot too.

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It feels I’m in a swap with Germany :de: Another postcard goes to them today …. Germany is wonderful however i want diversity

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Yeah, I know how you feel. Right now I only have 2 going to Germany, Russia, and the USA each. But at one point I have had 4 going to Germany. Since I can only send 12 right now, that was a 3rd of my sends!

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  1. USA🥳 (I save .90 cents on postage)
  2. Germany
  3. Russia

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I don’t mind that people in Germany, Russia and the USA are so active. Why? Because they are the powerhouses of Postcrossing! It’s because we have so many active people that you never have to worry about not getting an address when you’re ready to send a card. And thanks to the most active countries, we can connect to a vast number of people, every one of whom is a unique individual with unique taste in postcards. There is always something new to be experienced.

Of course, it is always exciting in a different way when we get a card from a “rare” country. But it can always happen! Recently I seemed to be in a loop of Germany-Russia-USA-Germany-Germany-Russia-USA-Germany-[other country in Europe]-Russia :slight_smile: Then I got three “rarities” in a row: from Luxembourg, Israel and Brazil. So, you just never know!

P.S. @shootingstar7 I save a little on postage to the USA, too (it’s the only international destination where Canada Post offers a preferential postage rate). So that is nice :wink:

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Wow! Such a beautiful post! Now I feel less guilty and a bit proud. Never saw it that way. Thank you so much for your important insight. :heartpulse::hugs: And I’m also glad that you draw some rare countries too. Surprise.

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Exactly. I was so happy to drew a Brazilian address the other day which doesn’t exactly happen every year. In fact, to me every country where I send 1-3 cards per year is rare. :joy:

During this autumn Russia was out of the game for the Finnish postcrossers, because cards mysteriously seemed to disappear into a void and never arrived. In order to investigate, Postcrossing geoblocked Russia for the Finnish postcrossers. Many here in this thread might have been overjoyed about it, but I started to miss sending to Russia (I almost felt guilty about not being able to send there). And at least I didn’t get more super rare countries during the two-month-period Russia wasn’t available compared to the normal. Well, I drew an address to Gambia, but it’s up to discussion whether it was just luck than due to these extra ordinary circumstances.

The route was restored in November, and oddily enough, those expired cards to Russia have been starting to reach their destinations. However, it will remain a puzzling mystery why the mail flow from Finland to Russia was abruptly and almost completely stopped from the end of June.

Postcrossing is a game of luck and circumstances. When in most countries the postage rises every year, a number of postcrossers are dropping out, because they can’t afford or don’t want to postcross anymore. The pool of different countries and postcrossers gets smaller in that sense. Because the German post doesn’t follow the suit of increasing the postage every year, it makes postcrossing an appealing hobby and Germans can afford sending more cards than a postcrosser in Norway for example (+the German post is quick, reliable and effective). And who knows which country will be the leader in 10 years? Then we might be reading complaints about a whole different country (if postcrossing, postcards or stamps even exist anymore). :smiley: It’s a never-ending circle which started with Finland. :smiley:

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I have always had a good variety and I have been blessed with several rare countries that I have received from… my usual method is to request about 5 cards at a time or more. I will almost always have Russia and Germany in there but the odds are that I will only have 1 or 2 of each… and only 1 if I turn off repeated countries. I am able to send 22 cards currently and I have asked for up to 20 addresses at one time. There were probably 12 from the top countries and the rest were scattered. I do think the day and time you request likely makes some difference and I am usually requesting rather late at night in the usa… this is daytime in other parts of the world and likely when others are just registering their cards. If I have a lot of spots open and I want to try and get as many of my own country in those spots as possible I request them around 5 pm…I live in the middle of the country and this gets all those people between 3p and 7p who are registering right after they get home and pick up their mail. Out of 20 cards I have had a many as 6 for my own country and quickly got those received … tho actually my cards to Germany are often faster than cards within my own country!

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I exchange regularly with Germany but notice on my map I have yet not sent or received one from Berlin… long way to go before I would be unhappy if ever. I slso love the speed of postal service/I can send & receive cards faster

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I’ve got 7 cards that have been travelling for a while: 3 cards to Russia, and one each to China, Belarus, the UK and Taiwan.
I’m used to cards to the first 3 countries taking a while; but perhaps surprisingly, the cards to the UK and Taiwan are the “problem” ones. I mailed both cards one day after drawing them, both are 5 days from expiry, and in both cases the recipients haven’t registered ANY received cards at all :frowning:
Luckily I’ve got some open slots, and I’m actively hoping I draw some addresses in Germany next. The post gets there quickly, and registration usually happens very fast too :two_hearts:

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I actually like drawing German addresses! Travel time from US is a week or so, they get delivered, and I have cards that they like. I enjoy sending to every country of course, but some cards take 1-2 months to travel and have a higher risk of non-delivery. I dont understand why people complain about lost cards and in the next breath complain about sending to reliable places.

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I love sending cards to Germany, too! Although it’s funny to me that a card from the US to Germany - literally from one side of the globe to another - takes around a week, while the cards I’ve sent to Germany have an average of 17 travel days. Gotta love Italian post :snail: :snail: :laughing:

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The current variety in my profile is just above the former G8 (9 countries/regions in 21 cards), which makes it like a G8 plus-crossing.

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I honestly am happy with cards from anywhere and to anywhere. I don’t really get the whole being happy with only rare countries thing!

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So the real question is: how do we convince every Postcrosser in Germany to go on holiday to a rare country and use travel mode while they’re there? :stuck_out_tongue:

But until then, we can entertain ourselves by seeing which words we can spell out in Morse code. Simply use incoming German cards as dots and US and Russian cards as dashes. I nearly got “nope” before a card from the Netherlands swooped in and stole the “e”.

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