Several postcards to same countries unchecked but still

Jarana · April 18, 2021, 5:19pm

There also is a option to send in your own countriy. If it is checked then you will also get cards from here.
The received cards vary like always and are not connected to the send cards. That means for receiving, repeated countries makes no difference.

sannah82 · April 18, 2021, 6:35pm

I have repeated countries on/off. I don’t mind writing almost exclusively to Germany. Repeated countries only limits the countries to where you sent, not from where you get cards.
In my experience, I am more likely to get US addresses when I deactivate repeated countries. Let’s say I have already 10+ cards travelling to Germany, then I deactivate repeated countries and I will draw 3/5 addresses from the US. I almost always draw addresses in batches of 5. Those are my current profile settings:

Torchwood3 · April 18, 2021, 7:07pm

Thank you for answering my question! I appreciate it.

Moniqu3 · April 19, 2021, 8:34am

Oh, no, please don’t think that you were! In fact, your answers were most helpful!

I am postcrosser for a short time only (October), so I don’t know about the difference with before the pandemic.
I only know the difference between december (with sending to same countries ON): Germany 28%, Russia 21%, none to USA.
And now (with sending to same countries OFF), e.g. March: Germany 50%, USA 12%, Russia 6% (but 3 postcards sent in March still on it’s way - don’t know where they will be registered if they arrive now).

I think I’m going to try to save slots and send more postcards at the same time. Just to see what happens then.

Moniqu3 · April 19, 2021, 8:38am

Thanks. He is! And he is sweet, too! We named him Rocky, after the Sylvester Stallone movies. But he is no where near that tough!

Moniqu3 · April 19, 2021, 8:42am

Thanks for sharing this! I hadn’t realized about the pandemics affecting it this much (I’m a postcrosser since October 2020).
I only know the difference between december (with sending to same countries ON): Germany 28%, Russia 21%, none to USA.
And now (with sending to same countries OFF), e.g. March: Germany 50%, USA 12%, Russia 6% (but 3 postcards sent in March still on it’s way).

EugeneOnegin · April 19, 2021, 9:12am

Speaking about before the pandemic, an example: when I got 8-10 slots in 2019 I got only twice 2 cards traveling to the same country (Germany): the first time the second address was drawn 1-2 weeks after the first, another time it happened at the same day, if I’m not mistaken.

Good idea! It will be an useful and interesting experience)))

TheBeaverFamily · April 22, 2021, 6:56pm

Hi all,

Last Thursday, I copied/pasted the current Postcrossing statistics from the Explore Countries page. Today (Thursday), I did the same thing. By doing this, I was able to see the total number of cards sent by each country in a week’s time. I know many of us complain about so many Germany, US, and Russia cards, but the data speaks for itself. 50% of the cards this past week were sent from there, so 50% of our cards will be going there. (Even though I have Repeated Countries off, I still have 75% of my travelling cards going to these three, so I do wish that number were lower, but I know there is more to the algorithm than sheer percentages.)

These numbers also show you which other countries have been most active over the past week. Importantly, the top 20 nations comprise 90.2% of the sent cards this past week, meaning the other 90 nations that sent cards only represented 9.8% of the cards.

I myself am one who wants to send/receive (official) cards to/from as many countries as possible, but from this data, we can see that in order to do so, we also will have to send/receive many, many other cards to/from the top countries.

(And yes, I hear the argument that we’re sending to people, not countries, but also to me Postcrossing allows me to see the wonders of the postal service…that I can drop a postcard in my mailbox at my house, and it can end up in rural Phillipines, Antarctica, Sri Lanka, wherever, in just a few weeks. That’s cool. And the coolness does dissipate if all the cards go to similar places.)

More than 1000 cards sent (#1-20)

Rank	Country	Postcards	Percent
1	Germany	29578	24.7
2	United States of America	19290	16.1
3	Russia	12973	10.9
4	Netherlands	6842	5.7
5	Finland	5043	4.2
6	China	3929	3.3
7	United Kingdom	3529	3.0
8	Taiwan (*)	3451	2.9
9	Belarus	2880	2.4
10	Japan	2834	2.4
11	Czech Republic	2695	2.3
12	Canada	2640	2.2
13	France	2494	2.1
14	Poland	1780	1.5
15	Ukraine	1496	1.3
16	Austria	1399	1.2
17	Switzerland	1373	1.1
18	Lithuania	1304	1.1
19	Belgium	1301	1.1
20	Italy	1004	0.8

More than 100 cards sent (#21-47)

Rank	Country	Postcards	Percent
21	Spain	957	0.8
22	Australia	922	0.8
23	Slovakia	743	0.6
24	Hong Kong (*)	734	0.6
25	Portugal	644	0.5
26	India	629	0.5
27	Singapore	532	0.4
28	Turkey	495	0.4
29	Indonesia	463	0.4
30	Brazil	389	0.3
31	Slovenia	379	0.3
32	Sweden	368	0.3
33	Ireland	366	0.3
34	Korea (South)	365	0.3
35	Latvia	316	0.3
36	Norway	298	0.2
37	Hungary	248	0.2
38	New Zealand	238	0.2
39	Romania	235	0.2
40	Bulgaria	221	0.2
41	Luxembourg	201	0.2
42	Estonia	191	0.2
43	Malaysia	178	0.1
44	Croatia	138	0.1
45	Thailand	123	0.1
46	Israel	111	0.1
47	Serbia	111	0.1

More than 10 cards sent (#48-70)

Rank	Country	Postcards	Percent
48	Mexico	99	0.1
49	Greece	83	0.1
50	United Arab Emirates	82	0.1
51	Kazakhstan	76	0.1
52	Philippines	70	0.1
53	Denmark	62	0.1
54	Åland Islands (*)	61	0.1
55	Malta	61	0.1
56	Cyprus	55	0.0
57	Macao (*)	48	0.0
58	South Africa	43	0.0
59	Moldova	36	0.0
60	Puerto Rico (*)	25	0.0
61	Guernsey (*)	21	0.0
62	Chile	20	0.0
63	Guam (*)	18	0.0
64	Iceland	18	0.0
65	Uzbekistan	18	0.0
66	North Macedonia	17	0.0
67	Georgia	16	0.0
68	Bosnia and Herzegovina	14	0.0
69	Sri Lanka	13	0.0
70	French Guiana (*)	12	0.0

More than 0 cards sent (#71-110)

Rank	Country	Postcards
71	Bangladesh	9
72	Algeria	8
72	Costa Rica	8
72	Ghana	8
72	Réunion (*)	8
76	Liechtenstein	7
76	Montenegro	7
78	Argentina	6
78	Faroe Islands	6
78	Guadeloupe (*)	6
78	Jersey (*)	6
78	Kyrgyzstan	6
83	Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (*)	5
83	Isle of Man (*)	5
83	Qatar	5
86	Barbados	4
86	Brunei	4
86	Christmas Island (*)	4
86	Kenya	4
86	Vietnam	4
91	Andorra	3
91	Tunisia	3
91	Uruguay	3
94	Azerbaijan	2
94	Egypt	2
94	Ethiopia	2
94	Maldives	2
94	Monaco	2
94	Morocco	2
94	Peru	2
94	Uganda	2
102	Antarctica (*)	1
102	Bahrain	1
102	Bermuda (*)	1
102	Dominican Republic	1
102	Iran	1
102	Lebanon	1
102	Namibia	1
102	Panama	1
102	Togo	1

No cards sent (138 total)

Afghanistan
Albania
American Samoa ()
Angola
Anguilla ()
Antigua and Barbuda
Armenia
Aruba ()
Bahamas
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Botswana
British Indian Ocean Territory ()
British Virgin Islands ()
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Cayman Islands ()
Central African Republic
Chad
Cocos (Keeling) Islands ()
Colombia
Comoros
Congo
Congo (Dem. Rep.)
Cook Islands
Côte d’Ivoire
Cuba
Curaçao ()
Djibouti
Dominica
Ecuador
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Eswatini
Falkland Islands (Malvinas) ()
Fiji
French Polynesia ()
French Southern Territories ()
Gabon
Gambia
Gibraltar ()
Greenland ()
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Iraq
Jamaica
Jordan
Kiribati
Korea (North)
Kosovo ()
Kuwait
Laos
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Marshall Islands
Martinique ()
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mayotte ()
Micronesia
Mongolia
Montserrat ()
Mozambique
Myanmar
Nauru
Nepal
New Caledonia ()
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Niue ()
Norfolk Island ()
Northern Mariana Islands ()
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Palestine ()
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Pitcairn ()
Rwanda
Saint Barthélemy ()
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ()
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin (French part) ()
Saint Pierre and Miquelon ()
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome and Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Sint Maarten (Dutch part) ()
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ()
South Sudan
Sudan
Suriname
Svalbard and Jan Mayen ()
Syria
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Timor-Leste
Tokelau ()
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands ()
Tuvalu
United States Minor Outlying Islands ()
Vanuatu
Vatican
Venezuela
Virgin Islands of the USA ()
Wallis and Futuna
Western Sahara (*)
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Moniqu3 · April 22, 2021, 8:11pm

Wow! This is incredibly interesting! Thanks for sharing!

elikoa · April 23, 2021, 1:23am

Fascinating stats (wow you do have patience!) and totally unsurprising!

TheBeaverFamily · April 23, 2021, 1:32am

Haha, nope. I copied and pasted it into Microsoft Excel and had it do my dirty work with just a couple of keystrokes and mouse clicks. Work smarter, not harder.

elikoa · April 23, 2021, 1:51am

Yep, I can imagine the bits that Excel did but

That does take patience

Kristina_Shtoppel · November 23, 2021, 2:42pm

Good day, in the summer I started to get involved in postcrossing, and noticed that when I request new addresses, I receive one country and 6 postcards. Is it like that for everyone? For some reason, they do not allow sending to different countries at the same time.

tesc · November 23, 2021, 3:20pm

Mine are a mixed bunch but I rarely request more than 1 at a time (the remaining slots still travelling). Maybe if you save them up this can happen ?

hankadl · November 23, 2021, 3:28pm

You may want to checkout this thread: Several postcards to same countries unchecked but still

There are countries that are more active than others so naturally we send more postcards there too Also check if you have the option “send several postcards to the same country” checked in your profile settings.

doryfera · December 2, 2021, 12:12am

I definitely draw some countries – in my case, Germany, Russia and the U.S.A. – more frequently than others. This is because they have more Postcrossing members! There is no way for all these people to participate otherwise.

For example, right now I have 11 travelling postcards. These are:

3 to Germany
3 to Russia
2 to U.S.A.
One each to: Lithuania, United Kingdom, Australia

This is very typical of both my sent and received postcards these days. Look at it this way: the participants from the more active countries are the backbone of the Postcrossing phenomenon. We wouldn’t have the breadth and variety and excitement of Postcrossing without them

P.S. Forgot to mention – the pool of available countries has also shrunk due to COVID! The list of ever-changing international suspensions by Canada Post is here – in most cases the suspension is mutual – and that means the list of candidate countries is smaller than it was pre-COVID So our Postcrossing organizers have done really well to keep the system updated so that we don’t find ourselves sending a card to a country that our nation refuses to ship to.

meylinhares · January 29, 2022, 10:52pm

I had this function on for more than one year, and thats my 2021 stats:

I personally don’t mind sending always to the same countries, but I decided to turn repeated countries option off for some time, so maybe there will be more Brazilian postcards traveling to other countries out of the “big three”. Let’s see how this goes.