10 Years of Postcards, Friends and Connections Around the World

Haastattelusta on saatavilla myös suomenkielinen versio

Whether you have been a postcrosser for a shorter or a longer time, you may be familiar with the Romanian Mihnea Raducu and his online postcard shop Postcardsmarket that celebrates its 10th anniversary on 10 March. Mihnea and Postcardsmarket are known to give their customer personal service, because for Mihnea his customers are friends and he also travels a lot and meets his customers even in person at meetups. Mihnea participated in the association’s trip in Åland in 2019 and was greatly impressed by the association. Mihnea was interviewed by the CEO of Finnish Postcrossing Friends Association and his long-time friend Marko Kulmala.

Mihnea, can you tell about how Postcardsmarket was in the beginning?

In fact, the whole story starts with my adventure with post. It all began in 2012 when I was quitting smoking and my sum of vices must remain somehow equal. At that time, I discovered my stamps from my childhood at my parents’, and I thought “wow, I will start collecting stamps”. But I realized that philately in Romania is quite expensive, because Romfilatelia, the issuer of stamps, issues a lot of stamps every month. So I thought “okay, I like collecting, but not stamps, because they are too many”. I had no idea how to start properly, but I liked flags and maps on stamps. So I decided to start with postcards.

A fun fact: around 2012‒2013 there was a contest organized by the Romanian Post called “Through postcards” where you could discover the world with a prize, like few nights of accommodation at one of the hotels owned by the Romanian post. Not that big prize, but it was interesting, so I activated my network of philatelists. I asked them to send me postcards from where they are and all my friends to send me a postcard for the contest. In 2014 I discovered postcrossing via Google and now I am on postcrossing as well, with more than 4,000 cards received and sent.

The pleasure of collecting cards was unexpected: I mean, I didn’t think that I would like it so much. Then the next question that pops up is if I think that I can have a postcard shop. Because I needed a postcard with the flag of Romania, but I didn’t have any such postcards available in my country. I remember that I tried to print a very simple card with the flag of Romania. But I didn’t not like it so much compared to receiving a lot of other flags from other countries, so I discussed the matter with one of my very good friends at that moment, Georgia Nazareno, and suggested that we start a small business. At first, I was thinking that we would make cards of the European countries only, not of all the countries of the world. So basically, we put up a company and started selling postcards.

What has been the most important turning point in your company’s history and when did you begin to see that this is going to profit?

Yeah, that’s an interesting question. In the beginning, the business was like a hobby business for me, I took care of it only during weekends. During weekdays I was working, and I had a student employee who picked up orders and prepared everything. Then I was going like on Friday evenings to pick them all up and then drop them out at a post office to be sent out. At that moment, I was a marketing manager at a pharmaceutical company taking care of counter products, so nonprescription products, like food supplements and vitamins and some other medicines all over the country.

The major turning point for my company was in November 2018. I participated in a meeting in Bielefeld in October 2018 and there I met Paulo. Then I realized that I must completely take care of my business. I quit my job which made my wife go crazy “Oh, my God. We have a small kid to raise. We cannot afford selling some postcards”. I quit my job and dedicated myself fully to the company. I realized that otherwise it cannot grow.

I had also a lot of luck, because, you know, you can have inspiration, but if you don’t have luck, it’s not okay. In the end of February/in March 2019 I was contacted by Swonild Genovese, the author of Titina. Titina used to be her cat. She wrote that she is an illustrator and writer from Italy, and she has some illustrations of Titina to make them out to postcards. I was “okay, let’s do that”. We printed also some fairy cards because she had a book with fairies. The fairy cards were not a best seller, but Titina was selling somehow.

So, I sensed an opportunity and I discussed with Swonild. I said to her “okay, let’s make Titina famous. Do you want that? Then let’s walk with Titina through various countries, Germany, Italy, Romania, Finland, China, whatever”. Because people loved Titina and friends, we put Titina to fly on a plane, go by ship, playing with a car, with a cake, with a mushroom, with a cactus, with monkeys, with whatever theme people asked. So, this is how Titina came into my shop.

Also in February 2019, because everything is related, the Maps of the World series was added to my shop. The series was designed even before that by a virtual friend of mine, Rudy who is from Switzerland. At that time, he was selling them at Zazzle. Zazzle is an online shop where you can make custom products one piece. He was not so happy with their quality of cardboard and printing, so we discussed and made an agreement to have all of them in my shop. He had, like a few states, not Romania. Romania was made for me.

You have got very much luck. How about challenges?

On 15 March 2020 the coronavirus pandemic was declared as a global pandemic. I believe that the craziest month ever in the life of Postcardsmarket was April 2020. Until then, one, two, three orders came in per day, per week. In the whole April, I believe that I received only two orders of some cards. But by the end of April, people started to realize that they still have online shopping left and they can work from home, so they have some money. In the end of April, in the beginning of May, orders started coming in again. I remember that I had a special permit to be able to go to post office to send the parcels, because it was not allowed at that time. Somehow I managed to move on from that crazy, crazy moment. But that one was very hard.

Next question is a sort of nasty question. But have you ever thought about giving up?

I am a human, I can be sick, I can be upset, but it goes over fast. I was thinking giving up in April 2020, but after that people still like my cards and they still buy them, so I continue. I believe my shop is still there, because people are still communicating in a classical way that finds new fans even today. At postcrossing meetups I see young people and kids involved in sending postcards and they seem to like it.

Okay, I have a lot of cards in my house, but I still like them. As long as I like them, I won’t give up.

You’re celebrating 10 years of Postcardsmarket in March. What does this milestone of 10 years mean to you personally?

I am much more relaxed. When I used to work as a marketing manager at a pharmaceutical company, I was traveling a lot, but I was only able to see hotels from inside, didn’t have so much free time to discover cities and had a lot of stress because of deadlines. Okay, who can imagine that now, when I work for myself, I don’t stress. Well, it’s not that way, because I must pay taxes, all the fees for running an online shop because nothing is free. The main factor that has changed during these 10 years is mindset. I mean, it’s totally different. It’s totally different when I’m doing what I like most, what I love to do every day, picking cards, adding info, searching information and so on.

What does postcrossing mean to you today?

I always say that without postcards, my business, my company, would not exist. My first contact with Paulo and Ana from postcrossing was back in 2017. From 2015 onwards I started writing emails to the Romanian post asking for a postcrossing stamp. Finally, in February 2017 they agreed to issue one. So that moment was craziness for me. Right after that, I organized a meetup in Bucharest and the first meetup on a train from Bucharest to Ploiești. We had like 30‒40 people participating that was a huge number of postcrossers for Romania back then.

Paulo and Ana awarded me the title of postcrossing ambassador, because I was involved in the stamp project and also promoting postcrossing in Romania. That fact, it is still so everywhere I go, at all the meetings, and even more in my private life. I am advertising postcrossing, because postcrossing makes the world smaller and better. Better because through cards, you can spread joy and happiness and smaller, because you can have the world in your pocket.

What is your favourite meetup memory?

Well, it’s quite hard to name one top meetup: Svalbard, Åland, train meetup, post office meetup on World Postcard Day 2023… Every postcrossing meetup is special. Okay, we can split them in three kinds of meetups: a meetup at a restaurant only signing cards, talking a bit, and then everybody goes home. A meetup like Åland, three days long, seeing and discovering places, meeting other people. A meetup like one on a train one or a meetup with a visit to a museum or a post office. Briefly all kind of meetups are nice, and I think that I have already been to somewhere between 150 and 200 meetups.

You have so much experience. What would you say to those who are thinking about if they dare to go to a meetup?

What I say to people who are somehow afraid to come to meetups is that a lot of postcrossers are introverts, they are not like me, talkative. But when you go to meetups, you can find new friends. That’s for sure. You can always find someone with maybe same passions, not necessarily postcards, but flowering, cooking, travelling etc. I know a lot of examples from postcrossing meetups when solid friendships were born. So if you have an opportunity to go to a postcrossing meetup, go there, see what’s happening. For sure, nobody will attack you, nobody will invade you. See what’s happening, and most likely, you will like it.

Yes, I totally agree, and I hope many people will take advice from your words. Now, we will make this interview internationally available, but we are making this for our Finnish members for the first place, so I must ask some Finland related question. So was it in Åland when you first heard about our community, I mean the association here?

I think before that I saw a postcrossing blog article with Paulo and you in a photo in Tampere. It was an event dedicated to postcards. I thought “wow, in Finland, postcard collecting is on the next level”.

If you ask me, this is still true for Finland, postcrossing and postcard collecting is on the next level. Why I’m saying that is that I am aware that last September you had a postcard festival. What I saw there, it’s craziness. It’s a heaven for postcard collectors. I mean, when I was there, I was like a small kid in a sweet shop. And I came there to sell postcards, not to buy. And of course, everything well organized, and that it’s only thanks to you and your colleagues.

We must return now back to Postcardsmarket’s postcards. How about when you make decisions about new postcards or postcard themes? Do you make those decisions more with your heart or based on data and cold facts?

Sometimes based on data, sometimes also by heart. For instance, I have this series with more than 50 trams, because I like trams. They are not a bestseller. It was my heart, my wish to have tram postcards and there are some others like me. If somebody tells me that they want postcards with mushrooms, okay, might be that I print them, but if 100 customers request mushrooms, then I will look for a way to do that.

Are there any card or series besides those trams that you are especially proud of?

Well, a card that is special and that I am so proud of has a photo with a post van, a mailbox, and the logo of the Romanian post. The photo is taken by me. I like postal systems and in fact, I collect postcards related to postal systems. There is another project that I really love because that one is an advertisement for the Flags of the World series, with a map, a passport, some currency coins, and the anthem of the country. There is a QR code on the card. If you scan it, it starts playing the anthem of the country for free. So yes, what I like is that, to answer your question, that I have a lot of crazy ideas and I can now put them in practice.

A question about AI, how do you see the role of AI in postcard designing?

AI, it’s here to stay, that’s for sure, and we cannot do anything about that. Yet we must learn how to use it properly, because AI might work for us. I played with AI and made some futuristic looking cards with national symbols. A lot of work behind these cards was studying what the national symbols of Romania are and put them all together to create an image. But I don’t plan to use it in the future because for me the human touch is very, very important.

I have seen a lot of meeting cards created with AI. People do that if they have a possibility, because it’s free to use. But in fact, it’s not creation. It’s somehow copying other information that AI finds online. Moreover, I think that AI is getting old very fast. In the next second, something else will come.

How is your typical working day like?

First after I wake up, it’s breakfast and coffee, coffee is mandatory. After that I go online to see new orders, edit products, add information about products, and create bundles. I also think about promotion and create campaigns for newsletters. In addition, I must prepare documents for my accountant every month to fulfill the governmental request. It’s very hard for me to get bored during the day. The phone rings, people send emails.

How do you balance your life because you are doing same thing as a hobby and job? Do you have some other interests?

I can say that postcards are my life, but I also like to go to fish. I do that twice per year here in Romania in the Danube Delta that is a super cool area. I do catch and release only. During my life I have collected a lot of things and now I collect letter openers. I have around 500. When I tell people that I collect letter openers, they ask “why?”. Because I love to discover details and a lot of them are unique items. And from time to time, I like to discover postal items, postal correspondence from the past.

What I aIso do during weekends, I travel to the countryside. My wife’s father lives somewhere near Bucharest, one hour away. I spend time there, gardening my cacti. I have a lot of cacti, and when they blossom, It’s craziness for me. When I have time I bike, but rarely. At least once in a month I travel to my parents who live two and a half hours away from Bucharest. My other interests are traveling, as you know.

Let’s continue a little bit about postcards, what touches you most in a postcard, the image, the message or the story?

Well, all together, all together. I always say that to become a postcard, the postcard must be real, circulated. Otherwise, that is not a postcard. When you receive a postcard with a message on it means that somebody is thinking of you. Every detail is important, the message, the front of the postcard…

I have sometimes received postcards in a plastic bag, the half of the postcard or a piece of postcard that I still can read. It’s a postal history already, all together: the stamp, the message, the cancellation, the date, the image, everything creates a whole piece of history.

Do you keep all the postcards you receive? Are there any postcards you will never forget?

I have boxes full of cards. Imagine that I have around 4000 officially received cards. In the beginning I was also involved in private swaps which means I have more or less 10,000 received cards. To store my cards, I have postcards albums as well.

When it comes to a card that I will not forget, I received a Flag of the World card from Ivory Coast with a unique ID number 242. The card is very special because it was sent by a friend of ours, Andri, who travels a lot, and the card was a complete surprise.

Another interesting card that I received was a fake Flag of the World from China because at the time China wasn’t in the series. There are a lot of copies which makes me somehow sad, but happy because it means people know my cards and want them.

We are now coming to the last part of the interview, and there are still some questions about the 10th anniversary of Postcardsmarket. What do you wish for Postcardsmarket in coming years? Do you have any wishes?

What I really wish is to be healthy, to be able to continue. I wish Postcardsmarket at least to maintain the level that it has now or to develop. From time to time, I am asked why not to expand, why I’m not thinking about selling the business. Well, if I sold the business, it would lose something very important, my human touch. Every time when I send parcels with stamps on them, people send me back messages “oh, my God, my postman was so amazed by the stamps that you put on the envelope”. That is crazy, beautiful. Thank you.

What I dream, what I wish for Postcardsmarket, is to be there and that its postcards reach as many postcrossers’ hands as possible. This was also my luck, because people who received my cards were curious about my shop. That was advertisement from person to person, the best ever and very useful for me.

What do Postcardsmarket and postcrossing mean to you?

Connecting the world one postcard at a time, postcrossing helps the world to became smaller and better. And I help with that with my cards. But I really want people to live in peace and have a possibility to send postcards to each other. I wish that peace will come one day so that everyone can enjoy their hobbies.

That’s honestly something we all can sign. Finally, is there a message you would like to send to Finnish postcrossers who are watching or reading your interview?

Go to the postcard festival at least once. Go to a postcrossing meetup at least once. On homepage of Postcrossing, there is a search button called Explore. It’s the third one on the upper panel. There is a header Meetups in the menu and there you can browse postcrossing meetups happening near you somewhere in the future. If you are not yet a member of the postcrossing association, join, because the association offers a lot of discounts and organizes events.

So warm words. Now it is our turn on the behalf of the Finnish postcrossing Friends Association to congratulate Postcardsmarket for 10 years. It’s an amazing number of years in postcard business these days, and we wish more years to come.

Thank you so much. And for sure, we will keep in touch. I am sure that we have an opportunity to meet again in person and to participate otherwise in virtual meetups through online platforms. But thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much for the interview. I’m sure that many people want to meet you after this interview and maybe we can meet you at some of our meetups in Finland or elsewhere.

Never say never. All the best from Bucharest, as I always write on cards. Thank you so much Marko.

Interview by Marko Kulmala
Interview edited by: Henriikka Laamanen
Photos: Mihnea Raducu, Henriikka Laamanen

The video is available with Finnish, English and Romanian subtitles. Duration: 93 minutes.