Postcard Graveyard

Temple at the Golden Summit, Mount Emei, Sichuan, China

Expired postcards are just the costs to "do business" in PostCrossing. Postcards can get lost in the mail, be forgotten by inactive users, or be held hostage by some recipients who dislike the type, content of cards or are offended by how their address are written.

Senders can minimize the chances of postcards losing in the mail by getting familiar with the guidelines from their postal services. A Customer's Guide for Mailing is a good resources for the people in the US.

For recipients, we understand there are other priorities in real-life. However, please change your status to inactive if you are unable to register received cards for a period of time.

Registering a received card is your obligation when you sign up PostCrossing, therefore, it is not optional. When someone intentionally delay or refuse to register a card, she or he breaks the rule. You can and should  let your displeasure so the sender knows when you register the card. Unfortunately, we did see occasionally some users mentioning on social media that they pretended not having received the cards for various reasons.

After one year from the date that the address is requested, the Postcrossing system deletes the postcard entry from the system. Therefore, the sent postcard will fall off the face of the Planet Postcrossing as it will not show up on the sender's sent list nor it can no longer be registered by the recipient.

The postcard US-1687553, sent to Mexico on May 17, 2012, is my 2nd card about to be sucked into  black hole. It features a temple at the Golden Summit on Mount Emei, Sichuang, China. Mount Emei Scenic Area, including Leshan Giant Buddha, is an official UNESCO site. The postcard was a blank bonus card sent to me along with the postcard CN-597954 by mickyjan.

However, postcards do arrive after 46 years, 49 years, 60 years, 64 years, or even 100 years. So, may my expired postcards be resurrected some day? I hope.