Postcards

I collect and send postcards.  I’m a bit of a postcard addict.  I’ve always sort of liked looking at them, and flipping through them, but my own collection (and love of sending them) is rather new.

In winter 2004, while on JET, CLAIR sent out promotional postcards, for free, to JET participants.  The photos were all shitty amateur crap by people with dodgy camera skills, but free postcards man! Yeah, I’ll send those.

And I did! I hit up everyone I knew to ask them for their addresses so I could send them postcards.  When I ran out, that was fine.  But the following year, the same thing happened, and I leaped on the chance to send postcards again.

Fast forward to Winter 2008, and a friend told me about Postcrossing.  I started sending cards through it and that was fun.  It was a pain to always run out and look for individual postcards when I drew a new address though, and so I started to pick up postcards when I went places, so that I’d have some on hand.

Fast forward to today, and I have 180 postcards that I’ve received through Postcrossing and from friends, and I have nearly as many blank cards on hand to send to others.  I went to Loft in Shibuya earlier this month, and dropped 10,000yen on postcards.

I think I may have a problem.

In related news, Japan (as most countries, I reckon) often has special issues of stamps, commemorative editions, collectors’ shizzle, and whatnot.  Currently, I’m using these Naruto stamps when I send postcards.  Oh, how nerdy!

Do you do Postcrossing? What do you think of sending postcards?