Here are the postcards!

I’ve been collecting postcards since 2008. Since then, I’ve sent and received over 1800 postcards from all over the US and dozens of countries. I respond to every postcard I receive, so I’m always open for private swaps.

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My origin story: Back when I was a young boy, I got the idea to write a letter to several world leaders, but I only ever ended up writing the US president and the Queen of England. I was so tickled to receive responses from President Bush and then Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II! Well, they weren’t directly from the world leaders, but rather from their staff members. President Bush sent me an autographed photograph (which I lost later in a show-and-tell accident).

One of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting sent me a very detailed letter, typed on Buckingham Palace stationery, answering all of my questions about the Queen’s horses and her corgis and her favorite foods. I marveled at the strangely-sized paper, the texture of the embossed coat of arms centered at the top of the page, and the stamps on the envelope. A real person had spent time reading my letter, responding to it, folding it and placing it in an envelope, and then more real human beings had taken the time and effort to transport it from London to some mail distribution center, to an airport in England, to an airport in the US, and back through the various USPS chains until it arrived in a plastic mailbox at the foot of my driveway in southeast Michigan.

I’m still fascinated by this process today, and all for less than the price of some chocolate! So I maintain correspondence with about a dozen penpals across the world, and send and receive postcards. At last count, I have a little under 2,000 postcards that I’ve received. Keep scrolling to see the most recent postcards that have arrived in my mailbox.

Kristopher Geda 2/17/25 Kristopher Geda 2/17/25

Tamara de Lempicka (California)

Two weeks ago, Tracy and I visited the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco to see the excellent Tamara de Lempicka exhibit before it closed. Just a few days later, Tracy sent this excellent postcard from a set of Women in Art she had! What serendipity!

Kristopher Geda 2/12/25 Kristopher Geda 2/12/25

Ankara and Istanbul (Türkiye)

My colleague and dear friend Ebru got these postcards for us when she was in Türkiye visiting her family last year. I’m so grateful she thought to buy them and write on them for me!

Kristopher Geda 2/7/25 Kristopher Geda 2/7/25

thank you illustration (Ontario)

I almost never include non-postcard content on my blog but this was just too good! Our friends’ son Walter celebrated a birthday recently and we found a copy of D’Aulaires’ Book of Trolls which we sent as a birthday gift. He had been introduced to the D’Aulaires’ books on mythology, a passion shared by his mother and me (and so many others). I checked out the Book of Norse Myths so many times that the school librarian let me keep it until someone else requested it! I was delighted to find the trolls book in a used bookstore in good condition, so we sent it and he was very excited to receive it. He illustrated this terrific thank-you card with trolls of his own design, which I find so fantastic.