Some People Will Collect Anything

If you follow this blog you'll know that I like to collect paper ephemera, especially postcards, but it never ceases to amaze me what some people will find collectible. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Dutchman Niek Vermeulen has the world's largest collection of air sickness bags. That's right, barf bags. Presumably unused barf bags. At last count he had 5,468 of them from 1,065 airlines.

He's not alone. An international network of "baggists" swap air sickness bags at Bagophily.com, "the magical world of air sickness bags". The site features news and views from the world of barf bag collecting, as well as a Hall of Fame and gallery.

I don't want to hear anyone tell me I'm weird for collecting postcards ever again.

Two Million Postcards From Strangers

A lot of people say written correspondence is dying out. With the advent of email and cheap telephone calls, people send far fewer letters and postcards than before.

But it may be due for a comeback. A postcard swapping organization called Postcrossing just sent its two millionth postcard last week. Postcrossing melds the internet with good, old-fashioned snail mail by having an online database and forum through which members can meet other postcard collectors--or deltiologists, if you prefer. The main activity is a random swap. A user requests to send a card and is given the address of another user and a code. The user sends the card, and when it's received, that person enters the code into the online database and the sender is now next in line to receive a card.

After only three and a half years in operation, Postcrossing has more than 80,000 members in 192 countries and just last week a member in Norway received a card from Germany that was number two million through the system. Postcrossing founder Paulo Magalhães said,

"The best part of the whole process is probably what’s done 'offline' - choosing the postcard and writing it up. And then, of course, there’s the thrill of getting a surprise in your mailbox, a postcard that was especially written for you, from anywhere in the world. The Postcrossing community has extended the 'offline' side of the project, by creating meetups that take place in several different cities in the world. There is even one happy story of a couple who met each other through Postcrossing and are now married and living together in Finland."

Postcrossing is a lot of fun and brings back the time when a trip the the mailbox wasn't just a weary search through bills and junk mail. I joined a couple of months ago and have already gotten some great cards in the mail. Actually, since my profile mentions Julián likes cards with trains and cars, about half the cards I receive are actually for him! If you're a member or if you decide to join, check out my Postcrossing profile.

Forgotten Lands Remembered

I recently stumbled across an excellent site called the QSL Museum, featuring old QSL cards. For those who aren't familiar, a QSL card is a postcard acknowledging receipt of transmission from an amateur radio operator to another operator or shortwave radio listener. QSL cards were the Facebook of the pre-Internet era, reflecting the creator's life and surroundings, and are still used today. The QSL Museum has hundreds of them online, dating back to the early years of radio in the 1920s. The ones that really caught my eye were from countries that no longer exist. Many thanks to Thomas Roscoe of the QSL Museum for permission to post these.
From 1895 to 1958, French West Africa was a federation of colonies that included the modern countries of Mauritania, Senegal, Niger, Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Benin. It went through several political permutations, but most of the time was administered by a French governor in Dakar, now the capital of Senegal. When I go to Gambia this year, I’ll keep an eye out for ephemera from French West Africa. It was a British enclave in the middle of this vast colonial federation.
Somalia has been in the news recently because of the continued fighting and the rise of piracy, but it’s always been a contentious area. This region has strategic importance but it seems that no one power is ever able to control it for long. When the colony of British Somaliland existed from 1884 to 1960, it was surrounded by Ethiopia, Italian Somaliland, and French Somaliland (now Djibouti). British Somaliland gained its independence in 1960 but only kept it for a few days before deciding to join Italian Somaliland as a bigger nation.

Somalia is theoretically a unified country today, but after the central government collapsed in 1991 the area that once was British Somaliland declared itself the Republic of Somaliland. No country or international body has formally recognized it and the republic’s government hasn’t ruled out reunification with the rest of Somalia. It appears everyone is waiting to see if the Horn of Africa can get its act together. In the meantime, the republic’s citizens are enjoying a stable currency and relative peace. Do I see a trip in my future? Almudena and Abha are willing to go to Ethiopia, but will they follow me to Somaliland?

While not technically a country, the Penguin Islands caught my eye because I'd never heard of them. The reverse of this card gives a good description of the islands and the DX (long range transmission) expedition. Amateur radio operators like to go to obscure places and send commemorative cards to those they talk to. The colonial cards were probably not from a DX expedition, but rather Europeans working in the colony.

All 22 of the Penguin Islands are uninhabited and measure in total 10 sq. km. There's some sort of shared rule over them by Namibia and South Africa. The card doesn’t mention which island they went to, but I bet they went to Hollam’s Bird Island (S 24° 38' 0 E 14° 31' 0) which is the largest and furthest away from the shore. If you’re going to go off into the wilderness to do some Dxing, you might as well go as far as you can!