Postcards Galore! Part V

FDIs, Maxicards, and Collecting and Storing Postcards

Where do I get my postcards?  Friends.  Family.  Purchases.  Postcrossing. 

Postcards are usually inexpensive.  I've seen them overpriced at the flea market, but they are usually only $1 or so at garage sales and on eBay.  I have a favorite seller who buys thousands at a time and divides them into lots of 20-40 for just $8 or $10.  These aren't new Continental either, they're antique and vintage.  Two of the last lots were foreign postcards.

"Game at the Emperor Charles Bridge"

Parish boat on a fjord in Norway

1910

Then there's Postcrossing!  I have received postcards from ten different countries so far.  South America to Asia.  North America to Australia.  It's free but for your cost of postcards and stamps.  If you collect stamps, it's a great way to get those too.  In fact, three times the bios of those I was sending a postcard to mentioned wanting stamps.  A middle school history teacher in South Korea, and a college student in China both wanted used stamps.  A young woman in the Netherlands wanted stamps for her retired stamp collecting parents.  I have plenty from that box full I bought in March!  I recently sent a postcard with an image of kittens to a 9 year old in Moldova.  That one had me looking up Moldova, having forgotten it existed!  I find I have no stamps from Moldova, something I need to rectify! 

Here are a few of my latest Postcrossing received cards.

Russia

Birthday wishes from Latvia

My first maxicard came through Postcrossing.  A maxicard, or maximum card is a postcard that has an image with a stamp related to that image.  The postmark should tie in somehow as well, plus the stamp needs to be on the same side as the image.  They are issued by the post offices.   This maxicard is from Taiwan and was sent in an envelope along with another postcard from a Postcrossing participant.  Some people collect only maxicards.  

First Day of Issue (FDI or FDOI)

First Day of Issue is the day a stamp is first authorized for use by the issuing country.  Some FDIs are maxicards, but my 1969 FDI of Carmel Mission has the stamp on the back, not the side with the picture of the mission.  Also, the postmark is San Diego, not Carmel.  First Day of Issue postcards and envelopes are very collectible. In the US the Postal Service actually sells them online.  Dungeons and Dragons is 50 years old, and the USPS has both FDI envelopes and maxicards in honor of the anniversary.

Storing postcards can be a problem.  I'm still working out the best way.  It's hard to know whether to file a card by topic or period, or other attribute.  Some are too pretty to hide away, so a few are displayed.

The antique, and quite a few of the RPPC, along with special linens and more, are in a scrapbook album.  I got the album unused in the Goodwill Bins.  I took out the pages since I didn't know if they were acid and PVC free.  I ordered new pages from Amazon, which hold 3 or 6 postcards each, one horizontal, two vertical.  If the postcard has a message on the back, I don't slip another in the other side, which is why some pages hold 3, others 6.   I also have post extenders to add more pages. 

Most of my cards need a better system!  

 

Some are oversized.  For now they are in an envelope in a shoebox with an assortment of postcard supplies and received Postcrossing cards.

I actually think that's it!  I didn't intend this "series" to have so many posts!   Thanks for reading!  Hope you enjoyed it. 

French postcard - postmark 1907

Aleppo Citadel, Syria - hand-colored early 1910s