Deltiologist unite!
Postcrossing posted this project to their Facebook page and being the deltiologist I am, I just had to check it out. What a wonderful article by Amy Alipio.
Go read the full article here. Go now and come back (if you don’t get sucked into cyberspace and can’t find your way back here. In which case that’s why I make all my links open to another page so … you know, you shouldn’t get lost. Just saying)!
As a fellow deltiologist (because, you know, now that I can remember that word I need to use it as much as I possible can, even if it annoys you) , she discusses some troubling facts about the decline of postcards and then rallies back by a call-to-action. She also describes her visit to Sackler Gallery in Washington and their “The Traveler’s Eye” exhibit.
I’ve been collecting postcards from a young age as well. Sometimes I mailed them to myself, most times I bought them off the selves as postcards. I love sending them though because you get the cancellation stamp (geeky, I know, but I never denied it). But the best ones are the ones I received recently, in the past year, as a member of Postcrossing. I can’t tell you how much I adore this hobby, more so now that I’m receiving postcards from places like Brazil and Amsterdam. I’ve gotten a couple from Turkey and China. I get to see the glimpses of the world that’s delivered to my post office box.
It’s as Amy Alipio says in her article:
It may be easier to upload a pic on Facebook. But, as Nancy Pope, a senior curator at the National Postal Museum who still sends postcards to friends and family with enthusiasm, notes: “It’s not the thing that you pull out of your mailbox and pin to the wall.”
So, I hope to see a revival of postcards and if not, I hope it’s not completely phased out because it’s the coolest thing to check my mailbox and see three postcards from places I’ll probably never get a chance to actually visit.
Long live the postcard!
Photo credits: dreamstime.com (in post) and donnellycolt.com (feature)