@RalfH @Johnk60 Yes that’s what I mean. The site is technically still going but I think not very many people use it anymore.
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Yes, the number of active users has reduced, but they are still nice, st least in the German section of the forum.
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A friend of a friend posted a picture on Facebook of a card they received and how much they loved it which piqued my curiosity. He helped me on my post crossing journey and here I am almost a year later loving this hobby.
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I work as a tutor and one of my students told me about Postcrossing. Usually students hear about PC from their teachers but in my case it was the other way round and I am a teacher who heard about it from a student, ha ha 
That student of mine was very enthusiastic about the whole thing and since I and my family had always sent postcards to our relatives and friends, I thought that it might be something for me and decided to give it a try. It was over 10 years ago and I’m still in love with this wonderful idea and the people who create this lovely community 
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I imagine I have a bit unusal story: I was working the mail sorting machine at my logistics centre during night shift. That’s the time when national and (most) international mail is processed to be forwarded to the next minor centre and single customer at the end (it’s the reverse during the day/evening, from customer to mailbox/-office to centre to (hopefully right) region).
Anyway, I was feeding the machine and saw postcards from not-the-classic-where-many-Austrians-go-countries, like BY or TW or FI). After a few shifts, I dared to take a closer look at some of the cards, and I saw the various IDs and stickers and ‘happy postcrossing’.
A few day later, I checked out the webpage, a few weeks later I joined.
That was 3444 days ago. Hurray
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I too have an unusual story to tell:
Last spring, I was having dififculty in recruiting participants for my Ukraine project (2022, 2023) from around the world on The Stamp Forum I frequented, when the maxicard creator and collector @Dorinco recommended me checking out Postcrossing. At first I thought we needed to be engaged in sending/receiving a certain number of postcards in order to join the forum, so I didn’t sign up right away (I didn’t have the time for that). Later in August, I realised there was no such requirement for posting on the forum. So I signed up, started a thread, and was able to recruit participants from every country I was looking for within 2 weeks. This is such a vibrant community!
I have always had the habbit of buying / writing postcards during my trips for my friends, when schedule is tight and time is wanting, but in my stationary life I tend to prefer writing long letters that allow developing ideas in depth, therefore knowing each other better. At first I was quite skeptical to the idea of sending postcards to total strangers, as there was virtually nothing profound that can be said on so limited a space as the address side of a postcard. But I soon realised that for someone who has always had difficulty summarising things, it’s the best activity to practice saying the maximal amount of things using the minimal amount of expression. So here I stay, looking to improve my ‘official’ Postcrossing digits (to my defense, I have sent more cards in forum giveaway activities than through official Postcrossing).
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I heard my two university classmates talking about postcrossing between themselves, so I googled it and liked the idea.
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I don’t remember how I found out about it, but I joined 2 January 2011 so maybe there was an article about hobbies to try in the new year? 
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I’m glad!
What an excellent topic. 
For me, it started out with wanting to find a way to use my fountain pens (then a new hobby) more, so I became interested in correspondence generally. From there, I found the Letter Writers Alliance (now closed, alas), which in turn got me interested in all things mail-related – stamps (both postal and ink), stickers, and so forth. An interest in stamps got me following Graham Beck, since of course philately is its own rabbit hole.
I enjoyed writing letters, but often, there’s something intimidating about an entire blank page – so I started sending postcards, which requires less creativity, and even if you write something boring, there’s at least a picture on the other side. Postcards rapidly became my preferred method of correspondence – I feel like sending a letter requires having something to say, but I was entirely happy sending postcards to friends for no other reason than I happened to be thinking of them and saw a postcard I thought they’d like. I made it a practice of sending at least one card a day early in the pandemic, as a way to try to maintain some kind of tangible connection with folks I suddenly stopped being able to get together with.
So, when Graham Beck encouraged everyone to join Postcrossing on World Postcard Day in 2020, well, I was most of the way on board already. And while I may have joined Postcrossing mainly because I wanted to send more mail, I can’t begin to say how wonderful it is to get postcards. There’s something profoundly wonderful about knowing that someone who I may never meet, somewhere in the world, spent some of their time to make my day a little better.
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I like this sentiment very much!
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Good luck on your exams!
Thanks a million 
Wish you a happy day!!（And your cat is very cute. 
）
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LWA member +1!
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It was mentioned here previously!
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I joined February 15, 2010 and back then I remember they were only at I believe 7 million registered cards. My close friend who I also worked for at her jewelry store told me about postcrossing. She is a very creative person and had been writing, collecting stamps and making art for years. She told me to join since it would be fun for both of us to do, she had also just signed up. And I was hooked! I’ve taken some breaks in between and really only do swaps on the forum these days. We have hosted several meetups throughout the years, I got to be in the newspaper even where I talked about postcrossing. And I won a postcrossing birthday contest some years back! So all that has been such a great memory and am so thankful for this community.
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I used to use Habitica and when I was taking a look at the challenges that the community creates I stumbled on the “Postcrossing challenge”. I’m really grateful for that moment of serendipity.
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