I love postcards. As a kid I never thought to collect them, and as a an adult, I never really thought to send them. Then, someone was trying to raise money for eye surgery, and I offered to send out a year of postcards to the winning “bidder.” I’ll be honest, I wasn’t very good at sending out the postcards, but I did amass a pretty good collection of them.
When I joined Swap Bot, I joined a lot of postcard swaps. I quickly learned that the tourist postcards I had weren’t sufficient for a lot of swaps. Turns out many people HATE them, so I needed to find additional postcards. I did swaps, found some online, bought some off Etsy, and stumbled across others. And now I have a sizable collection of postcards.
I also joined Postcrossing, which allowed me to send postcards all over the world, and receive them as well. As of this week, I’ve sent nearly 100 postcards, with 80 of them making it to their destination. Of the other 20, 10 are waiting to be mailed out, and 10 never made it, but I’m trying to send them again.
I had a stack of postcards that had been sent to me fall on me this week, so I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite postcards. I have hundreds of them, but I’m limiting myself to a week of sharing. Each day will have 5-10 postcards, so expect a week of slow loading days 
Day 1 will be my favorite postcards I’ve sent out over Postcrossing.
Day 2 will be ones I’ve received from Postcrossing.
Day 3 will be postcards I’ve been given that are blank.
Day 4 will be postcards I’ve received from Swap Bot.
Day 5 will be postcards I’ve purchased.
Day 6 will be postcards made from cardboard.
Day 7 will be… a surprise! Sure, that’s it.
This first postcard is my hometown of Oregon City. I buy these at the Oregon City Fred Meyer, and I send them out frequently. People either love the card, or they hate it, but I like it. The view of downtown Oregon City takes up most of hte card, and then there’s the trolley on the bottom left, and the elevator on the right side. Yes, that’s an elevator, goes from downtown Oregon City (all 5 blocks) up the bluffs to where the Mcloughlin house is. A little old man runs the controls, and they keep him behind inch thick plexiglass, presumably so no one tries to get the elevator to go to the moon.
Next is Oregon Lighthouses, because let’s face it, if I’m sending postcards from Oregon, I’m going to go with our landmarks, right? I’ll be honest, I have not seen all of these lighthouses before.
Timberline is neat, and I’ve never seen it in the snow, because I am not a snow sports person. Blame it on several winters being stuck in Blizzards in Wyoming and Nebraska. Whether I like the snow or not, I love this postcard. It just looks so appealing.
I LOVE this postcard. Someone in the northwest had to have done it, because when you see the next postcard, you’ll understand. I purchased this at Powells City of Books. I only go a couple times a year, because I can easily blow $200 in that place. I don’t see postcards on their website, but I have to tell you, they have some of the best oddball postcards there.
This is another neat sci fi style postcard. I picked up in in August of 2012 from the Experience Music Project Museum. They have the Icons of Science Fiction exhibit there, and this was one of the postcards they were selling. The one I really liked I don’t have scanned in, and it was “What if we could engineer our own children?”
On Postcrossing, a lot of non United States Postcrossers want black and white postcards, and postcards of Marilyn Monroe. I’m not sure why she’s so popular. This is a black and white, but not of Marilyn Monroe. I don’t remember who she is, I sent the postcard off to Russia, but it never arrived. The back of the postcard said who she was, but I’ve forgotten. If you know, please comment below so I can update this.
Photograph of the Olympic Rainforest in Washington. I really love this postcard because there are trees where I live that look like this. Most people think of tropical rainforests, but the Pacific Northwest has a temperate rainforest of its own. It’s beautiful. This postcard comes from a book called Washinton: A book of 33 Postcards by Impact Photographics. I picked it up in August 2012 on our anniversary vacation.
This is a photo of a green, 1954 Chevy Belair. I saw this car, it’s at Russells Truck Stop in Glen Rio. New Mexico. they’d just reopened a brand new building, and I stopped for an hour to stretch. The inside wasn’t completely done, they were still putting the finishing touches on stuff, but they were selling postcards, and I picked up a couple of these. Want to see the actual car? It’s in the museum, and they have a photo of it here.
This one came to me in a swap, I don’t remember where it came from, other than a postcard swap on Swap Bot. I thought it was a really cute postcard though. It reminds me of a country store that used to be open not far from here, where I grew up. My grandfather was the principal of a nearby school, and when I was tiny I’d go to work with him. We’d pass the store on our way. And I love animals, so I really like the dog.