250 Years of US Postal Service (4)

In 2025, the United States celebrates a milestone: 250 years of postal service. This collection of postcards have been released one a month. All 12 align to form a timeline spanning from 1775 to 2025.

4.

This postcard highlights the Private Mailing Card Act, enacted by the U.S. Congress on May 19, 1898, which marked a significant milestone in the history of postcards.

This legislation allowed private companies to produce postcards that could be mailed at the reduced rate of one cent, matching the rate for government-issued postcards and lower than the two-cent rate for letters.

Sent by Bryon (the USA)

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[1-2, 3*...]

*Not arrived yet

Lighthouses from the World

Greifswalder Oie ('Greifswald's isle')
Germany

This one arrived with matching stamps on the back:

Lighthouses near Gdynia, Poland

Charlotte-Genesee Lighthouse
Rochester, New York, USA

Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
USA

Cape Hatteras lighthouse protects one of the most hazardous sections of the Atlantic Coast, known as he "Graveyard of the Atlantic". Lit on December 1, 1870, the lighthouse is the tallest brick lighthouse in North America, standing at 195.8 feet. In 1999, due to threatening beach erosion, the lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet to its current location.

Photographer - Michael Ver Sprill

(Odd lights on this illustration!!)

Postcards sent by Cardeaux (Germany), Ania (Poland), Violet (Canada), Bob (the USA) and Fleur (United Kingdom).

Toads & Frogs

European Green Toad (Buffo viridis)

Who knows what a Flickerdick is?

Sent by Bryon (Canada) and Heleen (the Netherlands).

Oh, and there is another one on the selvedge of this French stamp!

Sunday Stamps | J Is for Jordan

Barbara Jordan (1936 – 1996) was an American lawyer, educator, and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction and the first southern African-American woman elected to the US House of Representatives.

More J-stamps on A-Z Sunday Stamps. 

The Evil Garden

All the information, rules, faq and last year's winners: here.

Five Days of Mail in September

(This is my 2025 postal project.)

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Autumn Colours

This envelope made a long trip. It was sent by Phillip (the USA) on 2 December 2024. It arrived more than two months later, on 10 February 2025, well after the Autumn... and almost after the winter!

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
October theme: COLOURS OF AUTUMN

• Week 1 - Orange
• Week 2 - Yellow
• Week 3 - Red
• Week 4 - Brown
• Week 5 - Halloween or Black

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

It Is World Postcard Day!

Are you going to celebrate it?

Nice to see this guy again, sent by Bryon (USA) few days ago. The second postcard was sent by Imma (PC) in 2024.

Don't You?

«Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.»

Ernest Hemingway

Back to School!

Uris Library, McGraw Tower (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA). Postcards sent by Phillip.

University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Postcard sent by Heleen.

Sunday Stamps | I Is for Isabella II

The first Spanish stamps reproduce the image of Isabella II, queen o Spain from 1833 until 1868. The same stamp was issued in different colours and face values. 

Spain was the tenth country to adopt the innovative system ot the stamps, and the first Spanish stamps were issued on 1st January 1850. Until 1865, stamps were presented without perforation, with a separation between stamps of one mil·límetre, and had to be separated by scissors. 

6.227.090 of these black stamps were sold during 1850. However, only five envelopes bearing it have survived.

On 7 January 2025, this self-adhesive stamp was issued to commemorate the 175th anniversary.

(This is the I-post for A-Z Sunday Stamps.)

Reading in Pink

Letter sent by Laura (the UK).

Recent Post Labels

Croatia

Hungary

Italy

Portugal

United Kingdom

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Traditional Dresses

Urk (Netherlands)

Ohcejohka/Utsjoki (Lapland, Finland)

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
September theme: LEARNING

• Week 1 - Legends, Children's Stories
• Week 2 - Famous People
• Week 3 - National Parks
• Week 4 - History (Could Be Historical Buildings)

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Orange Letter

Letter sent by Laura (the UK).

What Do You Futz Around With?

«"You like futzing around with postage stamps?"

She gave me a blank, frowning look. "What do you futz around with, huh? Hitting an innocent little white ball with a long stick? Soldering wires together and playing four-track-stereo? Slamming some dumb little car around corners, upshifting and downshifting? Are you a gun futz or a muscle futs?"

"I think I know where you're going with that"

"Where I'm going is that there's no list to tell you where you rate on some kind of scale of permanent values and find out how unimportant you are. But I can tell you what nobody ought to be doing."

"What's that?"

"Nobody ought to be sneering at anybody else way of life."»

John D. Macdonald, The Scarlet Ruse

Autumn Is Here

Today is the first day of Autumn in this hemisphere. I hope the Autumn mail will arrive safe and sound!

Sunday Stamps | H Is for Height & Horne

Dorothy Height (1912 – 2010) was an African-American civil rights and women's rights activist. She is credited as the first leader in the civil rights movement to recognize inequality for women and African Americans as problems that should be considered as a whole. She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years. Height's role in the Big Six civil rights movement was frequently ignored by the press due to sexism. 

Lena Horne (1917 – 2010) was an American singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. A groundbreaking African-American performer, Horne advocated for civil rights and took part in the March on Washington in August 1963.

More H-stamps on Sunday Stamps!

Ink Project Update

How many postcards do you think you can write with the same pen?

Do you remember the The Ink Project? Well, I can inform you that finally my only postcards BIC pen run out of ink... After having written 451,5 postcards.

What do  you think?

Mail Makes Everything Better

Postcard sent by Bryon from the USA.

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Rhön Biosphere Reserve & Appalachian Trail

Abtsrodaer Hilltop in the Rhön Biosphere Reserve, Hesse (Germany).

A century after its creation, the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) continues to whisk hikers away on therapeutic adventures in ever-increasing numbers, either for the entire almost 2,200-mile hike from Georgia to Maine or to enjoy a single out-and-back trek. Photo by Nico Schueler.

Postcards sent by Ines (Germany) and Phillip (the USA).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
September theme: LEARNING

• Week 1 - Legends, Children's Stories
• Week 2 - Famous People
• Week 3 - National Parks
• Week 4 - History (Could Be Historical Buildings)

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Postcards on Postcards

Two postcards sent by Bryon (the USA).

Stationery Girl

Collage on envelope sent by Laura (the UK).

Wise Words (III): Answer the Letter

«Sec. 3. How to go on with a Letter
[...]

My second Rule is, don't fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner!

The best subject, to begin with, is your friend's last letter. Write with the letter open before you. Answer his questions, and make any remarks his letter suggests. Then go on to what you want to say yourself.»

Lewis Carrol, Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing

Sunday Stamps | G Is for Gender Violence

Every year, Correos (the Spanish postal service) issues a stamp dedicated to Civic Values -a set of behaviours that is considered positive for the development of society. The theme in 2020 was No to Gender Based Violence.

This is my G-stamp for this round of A-Z Sunday Stamps (dedicated to women in Mail Adventures).

Good People Meet

Last month, I received this postcard through the Postcrossing site. It had traveled from China for 72 days! There were nice stamps on the back, but no explanation. The message was simply "Happy Postcrossing", wihthout names.

After registering it, I looked at the sender's profile and saw that the same postcard had been sent several times:

I felt curious about the picture. An online translator told me that the words on top mean something like "Good People Meet" (It looks like a good slogan for Postcrossing, doesn't it?). After further researching, I found out that this kind of images are made in Yunnan by Bai people, using old wood engraving techniques.

You can read more here and here, for instance I do not know how accurate the information is, but the pictures are wonderful!

Postcrossing & Bowling

Heleen (the Netherlands) sent me this postcard last year. And a couple of weeks ago, I received the followint one from her:

I did not know that the combination bowling & Postcrossing was so popular! 

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Famous Women

Rosalyn Yallow (1821-2011)
Medical Physicist

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, 1879
By Edgar Degas

Postcards sent by Phillip (the USA) and Laura (the UK).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
September theme: LEARNING

• Week 1 - Legends, Children's Stories
• Week 2 - Famous People
• Week 3 - National Parks
• Week 4 - History (Could Be Historical Buildings)

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!