Postcard Display and Storage

I would estimate that I have over 700 postcards that I have received over the last 20 years. Some came through Postcrossing, Swap-bot, and SendSomething, while others came from pen friends, local friends, and family. Some of them I inherited through family members and some through friends who passed on some cards in their possession.

My 2020 bulletin board of current postcard favorites

Most of these are stored in two photo boxes – one for the USA and one that contains all other countries. My favorites get displayed on my oversized bulletin board while others get stored in special albums that allow both the front and back to be displayed.

Five postcard albums are filled with my favorite postcards. If I put my favorites in the general box they get lost and mixed up with all the others. By keeping my favorites in postcard albums, I can sit and look through them together.

What makes a card a favorite? A few things:

• An image that speaks to me
• Fun postage stamps, multiple postage stamps, old postage stamps
• Lovely handwriting
• Doodles and designs
• Notes, quotes worth keeping
• Unique place (Cuba, Antarctica, United Nations)

I also have two travel scrapbooks with postcards I’ve purchased on trips as photo souvenirs. Some cards were mailed home to myself but many were purchased as pictures to be kept in a travel scrapbook. Unthinkingly many years ago, I glued some of them in the scrapbook, where now I would either use photo corners to hold them, or a special see-through envelope or photo sleeve. I did not glue in the postcards that had writing and postage on them, only the blank cards that I particularly liked.

One day, post-Covid-19, we will travel again and have the opportunity to purchase postcards for scrapbooks and to mail some of them home so that we can relive a few moments of the trip when we receive the postcard. Some of them will be stored in a photo album or scrapbook to look at again and again.

How do you store your postcards?