First of all, no, this is not a compliant or something like that. And I am aware of the travel mode but that’s not the case.
I just got a address mentioning that since 2019 they have been sending cards from Country A because of the too expensive tarifs in Country B. I took a glance at this user’s “sent cards”- all of them have the ID of Country B. (So I don’t think that the travel mode is used for this case.)
I know for myself that I’d be disappointed to receive a postcard with ID of one country but sent from another country. (Yes, that “country B” is a little “rarer” than “country A”, but I’d still be disappointed anyway. ) While if I am the sender, I’d definitely choose the cheaper way to send my postcards. So I’m curious that,
Is this allowed? (I guess yes)
How do everyone else thinks about this, from the sender and the receiver’s perspective?
I’ve had this a few times. It seems to be allowed.
I’m a bit disappointed as well, but I guess I’m not in the place to judge here. I just know that for me it is very important to send with the correct ID. That’s also the reasons I sent no official cards from Svalbard when I was there - travel mode would only give me NO-… ID and that wouldn’t have fit. But I’m really a pedant.
When I first joined, I was disappointed of the opposite… Travel mode didn’t exist and I thought I could use Postcrossing to send from my holidays… Or to send the gazillion cards I pick up on holidays.
In a sense, the ID takes away from the experience of receiving something with a complex history, or in this case that belongs to the sender’s home life but has been sent from a different location.
As for doing so regularly, I think it’s common enough for people in Poland and Denmark on the border to Germany, to send from Germany due to the cost and how cheap it is in Germany. As mentioned in the original post, hard to blame them, if that’s the only way to afford Postcrossing or to afford 3 cards instead of 1.
I think we can consider it “allowed”, there is no rule about the ID having to match (also because travel mode was implemented relatively recently) and because if I send something someone collects, but from a different country (it has happened and people have been happy) then that also would be disallowed and it makes no sense, since in that case I’m responding to a wish and giving someone something they want, where the ID is secondary.
And ultimately, let’s remember where we always go back: the rule is “send a postcard”, all the rest is a bonus
The only thing here is that there are stamps from country A on the card, right? I hear about this quite a lot and frankly, I understand. If you live close to your country’s border and the next country over is significantly cheaper, I’d probably do the same
It’s like Dutch people buying groceries and pumping gas in Germany, or going to college in Belgium, because it’s way cheaper
It doesn’t work as Svalbard’s WiFi goes over Norway. At least it was like that in 2019. I think I should’ve written a message to the team and they could’ve helped me, but I didn’t think of that.
I haven’t encountered this yet and I don’t know how I would react I’m a bit OCD w/ this kind of things so the travel mode is a wonderful feature. I’m really excited to try it out as soon as we can travel again
I agree with you, so that’s why I created this topic. Also because this seems to be a “privilege” of people who live on a continent, near the border of countries. At least it’s quite hard to imagine for me!
I seldom receive such cards (or just failed to notice, perhaps), so I thought this is not that common.
This reminds me that, during my stay in Vietnam, I had considered to send postcards from this beautiful country- also a very “rare” country in postcrossing. But my postcards to myself and my friends all got lost, so I gave up.
Perhaps next time I get to stay there or some “rare” countries where post service isn’t stable or too expensive, I could just get some addresses (assigned with the rare countries’ IDs) and send them from, say, Taiwan? Would this be frowned on by most of the postcrossers…? (It’s not likely I’m going to do this as I don’t like such cards myself, but I’d like to know :P)
Oh I haven’t considered this! I went back to see the postcrosser’s wall, and it seems that he/she is sending postcards featuring things of both countries. Which is perfectly fine and wonderful for me, as that might be the daily life for people live near the border.
(i.e.
-card itself: from both countries
-stamps: from country A
-ID: country B)
Would it make you disappointed if the card is from country A as well …?
Yes, but I’m not sure if the travel mode could allow you to regularly send from one country (with that country’s ID) and receive in another country for such a long time.
I can totally understand. I have a friend in Vietnam and whenever she sends something to me, she waits for her family who lives in Czech Republic but at the border to Germany to visit so that they can take it with them on the flight and then send it to me within Germany. International mail seems to be very expensive in Vietnam, also not very reliable and it takes ages to arrive. When she lived in Europe, we used to send each other letters weekly, but our correspondence, or rather: her replies died when she moved to Vietnam.
If the sender can still participate in postcrossing because they live at the border and can send it via a different country, please don’t be disappointed, it is just a different stamp, the person who wrote it still lives in a rare country! And it is probably rare for a reason. Otherwise they might not send anything at all…
She moved within Vietnam now and now mail seems to be more reliable though. I should send her some snail mail again.
would you be just as sad if you got a card from, let’s say, germany, with a stamp from italy?
personally i don’t care at all. as long as the message and the card are nice i don’t care about the stamps. and stamps from other countries can be just as great.
however, i live near the belgium border, i go to belgium quite a lot. but i never send out belgium cards (or stamps, but i don’t even know if belgium stamps are cheaper) because i know a lot of people don’t like it. even if i’m in belgium way more than amsterdam.
@mchay I just looked it up myself because my inlaws live on the border of Belgium /NL and I’m pretty sure they’re local post office would be Belgium.
It’s not cheaper! (boo )
I personally don’t care. If that enables that person to send more cards then I’m happy for them. Postage is so expensive in some places. This is a postcard website not stamp and cancellation mark website
Oooh, I am OCD about this as well, to the point of mentioning it in my profile Though I must admit the way I have it phrased now doesn’t sit entirely well with me and have to rethink it but my profile is set to inactive for the moment, so I have time
It is certainly allowed but like I said, personally it’s always a minor disappointment for me, if the combination of stamps+ID+view is not a match, not that I would comment on it in the registration message or anything. But because of this I never sent any official cards from my travels before the introduction of travel mode.
Yes. Always when the view+stamp+ID is not a match. If the card is not country-related, let’s say about Star Wars, then just ID+stamp is important for me in that regard.
But, since postage is so expensive here - cards from Germany cost ca. 50% less to send, depending on the exchange rate - I do understand people wanting to post from there. The same goes for other countries with high postage, of course. I don’t do it but I understand the reason behind it.
@Axolotl for Svalbard ID in travel mode, you have to ask the Postcrossing team directly, as the wifi will always point to Norway, like you noticed. They will set the SV ID manually for you.
Svalbard is Norway so that’s why the wifi gives you a Norwegian IP address. If you contact the support team they will help you so you get the correct country code when you visit.
But more important than a matching ID is a matching stamp for me. So I would rather prefer a German view card with a German stamp but Danish ID than a Danish view card with a German stamp but Danish ID. But even better would be a German view card with a German stamp with a travel mode ID from Germany, even if the person lives in Denmark… So yeah, I prefer it matching over a rare ID…
Ha, interesting! For me, matching ID and stamp are most important. So that the card is sent from the country the ID is from. It can even be a view from another country and my OCD wouldn’t mind. I guess there’s no way to make everyone happy.
People are different, but I consider the picture + stamp as neccessary parts of postcard correspondence whereas the ID is only something written down. Nothing technically needed for it to arrive (of course it’s neccessary to register) it’s just as I wouldn’t mind when someone writes down some memories about their last vacation in a differenct country. Hard to explain… It’s like considering the ID as part of the message.
edit: the part that I don’t like about it is the sorting here on the site. Because for my collection it would be a German card than… but it would be tagged with Denmark here. So, I don’t mind for my collection itself, but only for the stats on this site
I’m a bit OCD w/ this kind of things so the travel mode is a wonderful feature. I’m really excited to try it out as soon as we can travel again 
International mail seems to be very expensive in Vietnam, also not very reliable and it takes ages to arrive. When she lived in Europe, we used to send each other letters weekly, but our correspondence, or rather: her replies died when she moved to Vietnam.
)
Though I must admit the way I have it phrased now doesn’t sit entirely well with me and have to rethink it but my profile is set to inactive for the moment, so I have time 
