Tag: stamps

weeknotes, 22/26

our second week in boston was all about stamps! we attended the boston 2026 world expo, a big event that takes place in the usa every 10 years (in different cities). it’s a huge thing, with postal services, stamp dealers, and all kinds of philatelic associations and collectors coming together to celebrate stamps. usps launched a new stamp every day of the show, and the postcrossing one came out on tuesday!

friends, it was such a beautiful thing. there were speeches, pictures and autographs, but also the opportunity to meet and chat with hundreds of people throughout the week — all kind-hearted and full of beautiful stories about postcrossing. it felt amazing to be there and experience this collective joy for something we’ve been working on for over 20 years – and also to see these beautiful stamps start to make their way around the world. i want to bottle this feeling and remember it when i get frustrated in front of a computer.

we even got to chat with antónio alcalá, the usps art director responsible for many of their amazing stamps. and we met graham and laura (from pixpost and exploring stamps) too and they were both so nice! aaaaaaaaaaah! 😍

but it wasn’t just stamps! we also got a little bit of time to go to a diner with our friend addis from puerto rico, and try some other american staples, like grilled cheese sandwiches, lobster rolls, clam chowder, mac & cheese and dr. pepper!

and! we visited a local post office to see one of their historic new deal murals — something that had been on my bucket list for a while now.

sadly (but not surprisingly), after all the excitement was over we immediately became sick… 🙄 *le sigh*.

in taiwan

taiwan postal museum

any postal museum is an obligatory visit for us, and this one had been on my list for ages. we decided to visit it just at the right time, it seems — they were having some activities ahead of children’s day (which is a holiday in taiwan) and entry was free! :D we were also given a card at the entrance, so we could answer a question at every floor and collect stamps to exchange for a prize at the end.

so off we went to explore all the floors! some were dedicated to postal history and the first stamps, others to thematic philatelic collections…

…and one was just for children which was quite cool as it was particularly interactive.

they also had quite a few different mailboxes on display, which were available as postcards! i do love it when a museum has nicely made postcards, so i had to grab a few to write later. :)

our gift at the end turned out to be two-fold: first, we were given the chance to pick a stamp from a pile to make a badge on the spot. i chose a dalek-themed stamp, and paulo spotted another uk stamp featuring sir rowland hill at the last minute (the inventor of the penny black), so of course we had to pick that one.

and because we bought some postcards, we were also offered a couple of cool stamp-themed tote bags… wow! we might be a little spoiled for other museums now…

postcrossing

a stamp with our name on it

how many people do you know that have their name and address on a postage stamp? two at least!

these are out today, and we couldn’t be more freaking excited about them! :D

they’re from guernsey post, who suggested that each of the three stamps they were issuing about postcrossing “went” to a different team member — so one is addressed to me and paulo, one is going to nicky in the uk, and one is going to vicki in australia. nicky and vicki’s use a fantasy address that is meaningful to them… but since we have a rented PO box for postcrossing and don’t mind getting mail, ours features our own address.

here are the accompanying postcards, that feature the same image of the stamp:

pretty neat, right? :D

Post author By ana
Post date June 10, 2021
1 Comment on a stamp with our name on it

in finland stationery sundays

cool finnish stamps

aaaaaah, finland. the land of moomins, delicious cardamom rolls, sauna… and brilliant stamps! there’s the postcrossing stamp of course (one of the first to honour the project), but here are a couple others that i particularly like.

the veggies stamps are a fun issue. you pick a veggie on the left, stick it on your postcard or letter, and then decorate it with stickers from the right side — like playing mr. potato head! the combinations are endless and the result is always a different and fun stamp!

i love this stamp sheet! to celebrate the country’s 100th anniversary last year, the finnish post invited all citizens to upload their photo and then made these sheets of 10 stamps with lots of mini-portraits on them. they scrambled the photos from sheet to sheet, so they’re all different and people have to look really closely at the sheets or the mail they’ve received to find theirs! isn’t that a cool idea? our friend kati found her photo on the stamp below :)

and last but not least, this magical moment at the finlandia stamp exhibition last year, in which their mini-volunteers at the kids section helped us become part of a stamp!

that was so much fun. the kids were super nice, spoke perfect english and even gave us lollipops at the end! :D

in germany postcards postcrossing pretty things

isetta stamps!

i found about these completely by accident, while on a postcrossing meetup in germany last year… and i adore them! :D

had i known these existed sooner, i would have sent all my postcards with them!!