More happy mailbox days with the official PC

I think we are also seeing the knock-on effects of 3 years of COVID, which have affected all kinds of things besides the # of postal workers available at any given point in time.

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I got 5 cards from Germany. Don’t get me wrong I like my German neighbours, but it’s nice to get cards from some other countries as well. The German cards all arrive so quickly. Get like 4 cards in one day.

Yes, it has. It’s a reoccuring problem for people living in “smaller” Postcrossing countries. When I lived in my home country Finland (which used to be a hugely active Postcrossing country, but not so anymore - I left Finland in early 2022), I noticed the same pattern all the time: every time I had sent one card more than I had received, my address went into the address pool multiple times, which resulted in receiving a huge amount of cards in a short period of time - and then nothing for a few weeks, as it took me ages to catch up again. :pensive:

Now that I live in Germany, this isn’t a problem anymore, probably mainly because Germany is very active and my address isn’t as “wanted” because many people prefer to send to different countries (don’t get me wrong, I know that they don’t have anything against Germany, but it’s a fact that many people want more variety). The algorithm tries to select addresses to different countries, so for example a Finnish (or Norwegian) postcrosser is likely to be selected instead. Occasionally I still have a couple of received cards more than sent, but never a large amount, and it never feels like catching up anymore. My mailbox is happy more often. :love_letter:

Postcrossing in Finland was stressful and sometimes even exhausting because of this irregular pattern of receiving cards, and I truly sympathize with you, @Molletje. In my dream world Postcrossing would be “1 for 1”, meaning that every time someone sends a card, their address gets selected only once. Of course this isn’t always possible due to a high demand for addresses in general, but I just don’t think it’s fair to select someone’s address more than 10 times just because they happen to live in a rarer country. A few times would be OK, but definitely not more than 10, phew.

This is why I’m always encouraging people to choose sending to repeated countries. :heart: It is fair for everyone, and that way everyone’s chances of getting different countries would be equal. Postcrossing would be truly random, which could be so much fun!

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It’s something that never really bothered me I guess. In Ireland we have a five day delivery week. last week on Tuesday morning I received 11 postcards at once and mixture of official PC cards and a few members that were kind enough to send me some to cheer me up. My postman actually rang my doorbell which is extremely unusual if it’s not a registered letter. He was curious and asked me why I was receiving 11 postcards at one’s. Back in 2018 we had a postal lady who began to noticed a high-volume of postcards coming to my address. So one day she made sure to deliver my letters last as she ended up ringing my doorbell and we had a 1-hour conversation about postcards and stamps.

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That ist strange somehow, for you were in a very active country back then and you are in a very active country now.

Unfortunately this is just the nature of the game. When you have bigger countries like Russia, America, Germany and China with extremely active post crossing members. Cards sent and received will always be a bit top heavy in these four players. Out of my 522 postcards send 120 have gone to Germany alone and I have received 128 from Germany. Russia is my second most and Americas in third place and china makes up 4th place in my statistics.

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For me the same , sometime 3 or 5 a week , next week 10 a day
Postman is coming every day, change every time , it’s bizare but i’m happy when something arrives
Greetings Christine

For me too

Yes, but Finland was such a big player when I started PC back in 2013. They had as much cards sent as we Germans had. And some PCers had “no Finnish woods please” in their profiles.

Yes, but Finland is not as active anymore, compared to Germany. I should have mentioned that I only moved to Germany in early 2022. The difference in the receiving patterns is very drastic between these two countries nowadays!

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So things were okay for you, when Finland was very active, but it became stressful, when Finland becsme less active, right?

To be honest, I can’t remember how it was exactly when I first started in 2011, but I do remember that back then this was never a problem for me - sometimes I had maybe a couple of cards more received than sent, but I never had to “catch up” for several weeks. It was basically the same way for me as it is now in Germany. :slightly_smiling_face: It became a problem later as Finland’s sending activity decreased further and as Postcrossing itself became more and more popular around the world, with the demand for addresses increasing.

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Hello

The same seems to happend here. I try to keep my travelling slot full all the time. So my monthly sent card are round about 15.
i realised postcrossing is giving my adress monthly in the random process. So i receveid 18 in august, 15 of them where sent on 11.8. :upside_down_face:.
Same happend in july and some more month.

I’m wondering about that, because my sent cards are being registeredon diffrent days, not only on 11.8.

I also feel like the postal system may affect this. In the US where I live, the delivery of both received and sent cards has slowed down, even to Germany which used to receive my cards the fastest.
When I receive cards now, multiple cards often arrive on the same day, or two consecutive days, then nothing for a long while.
My sent cards are even slower getting out now too, especially after I moved to a different, smaller city earlier this year.

Yes, I agree. I’ve been wondering about the mail restrictions as well. I’m in the US, and used to draw lots of Russian recipients. I imagine this must have had some effect? And sending to China is still throttled right now too?

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It absolutely has an effect on the PC system when countries can’t send to another, especially big countries.

Have you seen this thread about US postal delays/cuts to service?

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