It is not a generational shift, however. While older generations grew up using analogue forms of communication, it is millennials who send the most postcards, according to the poll by Britain’s InsureandGo, an online travel insurance provider.
More than half of millennials (53 per cent) send postcards when they travel, followed by Gen Z (aged 16 to 26), of whom 47 per cent send postcards while away. After that came Gen X (aged 43 to 58), with 34 per cent sending postcards.
Many who send postcards say it is because of a family tradition or a personal habit, or wanting to connect with loved ones by sharing experiences of travel.
Although fewer people may be sending postcards, some 41 per cent like receiving them, the survey said. They cited feeling happy, remembered, and loved as the three emotions most frequently mentioned upon receiving one.
People also often keep postcards they receive, sometimes for a very long time.
One of them is Jürgen Hartwig, a German collector who has collected half a million postcards over decades.
Kept in shoeboxes, some are pretty unusual. One is a portrait of a woman covered with real hair. Another, from Lake Constance, is decorated with dried edelweiss. Some are made of wood, silver foil or even cork.
Hartwig, reasoning he “can’t take the cards to heaven and I can’t take them to hell, because they would burn”, is now searching for a museum.
Germany has no plans yet for a postcard museum, although the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg has a large collection, with some 1.5 million postcards.
Postcards have a special place in Germany – they were conceived by postal reformer Heinrich von Stephan. In 1865, he proposed the introduction of an “open post sheet” as a simple and inexpensive alternative to the letter. The Austro-Hungarian postal service introduced it on October 1, 1869.
A few years later, the plain postcard was spruced up with pictures, resembling the cards we know today.
“Because printing technology was so well developed in Germany, cards were produced for the whole world. Everyone was enthusiastic about it, there was a real picture postcard mania,” says historian Veit Didczuneit, head of collections at Berlin’s Communication Museum.
Collecting was widespread at the time and there was hardly a motif that did not end up on a card. Wars and disasters were often depicted. Before television, postcards were an important way to share information.
While collectors remain passionate about the cards, postal operator Deutsche Post is not very optimistic.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing a similar trend with postcards as with letters. Volumes have been falling for years and we expect them to continue to decline in the coming years,” says spokesman Alexander Edenhofer.
In 2023, Deutsche Post delivered around 95 million postcards.
Didczuweit is excited about new approaches to postcards, citing Postcrossing, an online site that encourages strangers around the world to send postcards to others.
