What date do you write on your card?

When you’re writing your cards, do you write the date you actually wrote the card or the date it’ll be mailed? I’m writing letters today (Sunday, March 21), but mail won’t go out until tomorrow (Monday, March 22). Would you write March 21 or March 22?

Or maybe I’m writing all my cards today, but I know I won’t take them to the post office until two days from now. Do I write that date or the today’s date?

This is merely a curious ask. I have a personal preference and want to know what others think.

What date do you write?
  • The date you write the card regardless of mail pick-up
  • The date of mail pick-up
  • Other (please comment)

0 voters

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The day I am writing, always, for officials.

For others I might write the day I post it if I know it won’t be for several days.

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Should it be in “General Topics” then"? :slight_smile:

You’re right! I moved it.

I write the day that I write the postcard. Sometimes it’s actually the date before the date that Postcrossing says the postcard is requested because the Postcrossing site is on a time zone ahead of where I am and I’m writing it the night before.

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Hopefully the canselation date will be readable on stamp. For me an extra bonus if the stamp was released within the last year from post office date. Then you have what is called “tidsriktig” in Norwegian (in right time). This is more a stamp collectors point of wiew and just to tell that date and stamp are two sides that matters for highly exposable postcard. However In Norway current stamps are now timeless. Most PC I imagine are indifferent to dating, and focused on motive impressions. Both card and stamp.

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i write the date when i’m writing the card. i think that makes more sense in what you’re writing on the card. like if i put the weather or say ‘today i’m doing this and that’.

i also wrote all my cards yesterday (sunday) and sending them out today. in that case it doesn’t really matter because the mailbox doesn’t get emptied on sundays. so the travel time would be the same either way.
i send out my cards the next day almost always and i don’t think it really makes much of a difference (as probably a lot of people write in the evening).

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The date I add to the postcard is the one from the day I wrote the card.
Sometimes I ask for addresses on Sunday, in order to mail them the day after. So I left them wrote and put it in the postcbox when I leave to take my daughter to school the next morning.
However, there are days I’m bored in the middle of the day, and I ask for addresses, write them asap and leve to the postbox before 1 pm (the time the mail carries goes to pick the content of the postbox).

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I picked the date of writing, but sometimes I backdate them (happens that I start writing on one day and finish on other, if the difference is more than week, then two dates xD). I date all cards like that by default

Though for people who ask to put date on postcard, as a request, I put mailing date, because I suspect it’s to easen the reading of date on the cancellation stamp… (Edit: it seems that is important for stamp collectors and such)

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I usually don’t write any date on my cards, in 9/10 cases I write a card the same day I draw the address so writing the date on the card wouldn’t provide any additional information.

If the profile specifically asks for an added date I’ll do it of course, in these cases it’s the day I write the card.

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Oh really?
I always wondered why people asked in their profiles for people to add the date, because I thought everyone does it.
Of course you can always check by looking up the ID but I prefer to see the date on the card itself, “offline”, without going to the Postcrossing website and searching for the ID.

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i gues it’s different for everyone but i ask on my profile for people to write the date so i can see when it was sent (and if you send it 3 days after writing that doesn’t matter very much to me) right when i get the card.
mostly it’s for when i go through my old cards though. i like to know when i got the cards years later.

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I often forget to put dates on cards, mostly because I’m not got at rembering numbers. If somebody asks for them I might write it, but no guarantee.

When I write it down, then it’s the day I write the card. And I always write the month as word, to avoid confusion.

Since I usually write my postcards and letters in (mid)night, I write the date of the day I start writing the message.

I always date my postcards and letters. I learned to write the city and date of the day at primary school, and I never stopped. I often wonder why many people don’t date their postcards…
Anyway, I always write the date of the day I’m writing on. When I send birthday cards, I normally write “date I’m writing on --> date of the person’s birthday”, but otherwise I never write a different date.

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I always start with the date of writing too. I find it really fascinating to see the various ways people do their cards, and note how much time passes for some between drawing the address, writing the card, and posting it. (I’m still at the stage where I have so few cards to send, and they take so long to arrive, that it’s always all the same day for me :joy:)

I annotate my received cards with the date they are received and registered, to complete the picture in ‘analogue’ format too.

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I pretty much only write the date when the recipient asks for it in their profile (if I don’t forget). But I never would have thought about writing a date other than the date at which I’m writing the card.

Like @mikebond I was taught always to write the date of writing and the location at the top of the letter. If it took you more than one session to write the letter, you would write - Later - or the new date. Time of Day was optional.

As an example, I am mailing a letter to a friend today. Yesterday I traveled from Berlin to my home in Eitelborn. I started my letter in Berlin but didn’t finish it. I wrote a little bit more in the Berlin train station before I left. I almost finished the letter during a layover in Cologne but didn’t have time to send it from there. I finished the letter before mailing it today. My letter would start out “21. March 2021, Berlin, DE”. Then before I picked up in the Berlin train station I would add “-Later-”. Then in Cologne I would add “-Later- Cologne” and before the last entry “22. March, Eitelborn.” Oh, and if the letter goes to more pages, the most current date and place gets put at the top before the page number. I think that is in case you write using the same stationery, and the recipient maybe drops the box of letters you have sent them and needs to put them back in order.

Not putting in the place and date is just foreign to me as a writer, but as a reader I don’t really notice for officials, which I just keep in boxes by year anyway. For penpal letters, though, I really appreciate getting them properly dated and located, just in case of the dropping-the-box thing…

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Same! (not surprising as we were in the same education system at similar times :laughing:). To be honest, I don’t write the location anymore unless it is necessary for some reason. I think I started omitting it just to save space :joy:

I am kind of even a little “annoyed” that people ask in their profile about writing the date, as I would do it anyway and thought it was an obvious thing to do. I understand it is not everybody’s habit, but I do it because I want to and not because I am asked…

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I am always amused to read this on the profiles of people who send me undated cards, maybe I particularly notice when this is the case but I would think that if it is important for them they would always do it for others. I always automatically write date and location.

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