For a book I’m writing about global postal systems, I’m doing an analysis by country of how the cost of sending an international postcard compares with the cost of buying a loaf of white bread, a liter of gasoline, or 1kg of white rice. I’ve seen analyses where stamp prices are compared to the country’s average income, but food feels like a more accessible comparison to me.
Please save me some work if this comparison (to something tangible like food) already exists somewhere! Thanks : ) And big thanks to Paulo and everyone else on this thread for being the stamp price data source that I needed.
According to Thailand Post’s announcement on January 22, 2024 — effective from March 1, 2024 for postcards (standard postcards and picture postcard). The new postage rates for postcard effective from March 1, 2024 are:
THB 47 for standard postcard (105 x 148 mm)
THB 50 for picture postcard (size from over 105 x 148 mm to 130 x 180 mm).
Many Thai postcrossers are deciding to send less postcard or stop sending or maybe quit from Postcrossing, because they think the postal rates are too expensive when compared with their cost of living.
The new destinations will be available for postal service from Thailand, but the postal rate is quite (too) high.
More destinations. more postal rate, and more expensive!
Liechtenstein and Switzerland have always the same prices and both consider them domestic. I removed the “Russia”, Russia is at least partly Europe, same would go for Turkey, no need to mention.
Austria - USA economy route doesn’t seem to work, or works very very slowly, over 100 days.
But: priority seems to work, and apparently you can use stamps.
Priority mail should be taken to post office and have priority label.
Please update this, so Austrian members could use this option if they are willing to pay more, and have more quick delivery. (Although long time members probably won’t check this.)
Here is my suggestion:
Attention: to USA, priority option seems to be much quicker while economy seems to be very slow (priority about two weeks vs economy over 100 days).
To other countries economy still seems to be a quick choice. (?)
Priority should be sent from the post office. You can use stamps, and the sending must have a priority label (you can print that or get from (some) post office(s)). If you drop it to the mail box on the street, it is not necessarily noticed and can be treated as economy mail.)
I was at the GPO in Doha last week and was told by the lady in the philatelic office that the postage for international postcards has gone up to QAR 15 (USD 4.12). This trend of jacking up postage prices to simply rip off tourists, or even its own people, is really sad. I doubt I will send much from Qatar in the future.
about China
The Chinese currency unit is CNY, not RMB.
The latter is an abbreviation for RenMinBi, which is pinyin of the word '人民币‘. As Chinese, we use this abbreviation ‘rmb’ on the web, but it’s not an English word.
I don’t think the current description is accurate enough.
The form ’￥+CNY‘ is still not precise enough, but I haven’t changed this part.
Posti just informed that prices increase April 25th. New prices will be 2,50 € for domestic and international economy and 2,75 € for international priority mail. (I am not changing the prices to wiki just yet, there is still one month before the increase).
went up, see 
prices from 1st February 2024
