The 7 Best Gift Ideas for Postcard Lovers

To find the best gift for a person who loves postcards, it’s important to first understand why they love postcards.

Luckily, people who enjoy sending and receiving postcards almost always have a few things in common.

First, they appreciate human connection, whether as a handwritten note in the mail or in the form of spending their birthday or the holidays with their loved ones.

Because of this trait, choosing the perfect gift for a postcard writer is especially fun because they are almost certainly the type of person who first and foremost appreciates that you got them anything at all!

Second, they love receiving unique and personal things, especially in small packages.

Their gift doesn’t need to be expensive, but they’ll probably be able to tell pretty easily how much thought you put into choosing it—so be sure you consider the right color, flavor, or style of gift among any given options.

> Related: 10 Creative Ways to Use Postcard in Your Wedding

Finally, postcard people relish the experience of communication, not just the physical postcards themselves. More than the messages themselves, it’s about the hours they spend sending a little more love and kindness out into the world.

If you’ve landed on this article, postcards are likely a core part of your gift recipient’s life, so something that supports their ability to enjoy that life experience will absolutely go over well.

To that end, we’ve rounded up seven great gift ideas for people who love writing and receiving postcards, letters, or any other form of snail mail. Take a look!

Monthly Postcard Subscriptions

Naturally, the best thing you can give a postcard lover is probably postcards!

Perhaps the most fun way of doing so is by giving them a monthly postcard subscription.

There’s a reason subscription boxes are so incredibly popular for holiday gifts—they’re a gift that keeps on giving, providing something for your mom, friend, kid, or partner to look forward to being surprised by in the mail every month. They’re particularly great as a last-minute gift, since the first month’s subscription will be sent directly to the person you’re gifting it to—no need to worry about paying for rush shipping to get something wrapped by their birthday or under the tree in the final days leading up to Christmas.

With a postcard subscription, your recipient will be kept in a steady supply of fresh, original designs, and they’ll love getting to choose who to send each postcard to. You might even get some yourself!

These postcard subscriptions come with three, five, or 10 premium postcards per month, and include complete postage for every card so neither you nor they will have to worry about stamps. The 10-postcard subscriptions also include a bonus paper gift every month.

Sign up here and choose the “Gift It” option to set up shipments for as many months as you like. They start at $14 per month, and those who sign up now receive 50% off the first month.

The Perfect Postcard Pen

Let’s be honest—many of us postcard writers do plenty of our writing with the types of free ballpoint pens available at cafés and other businesses.

Even for those with an arsenal of gel pens and other specialized options, their quality can be a little finicky sometimes—and it’s always a sad day when a preferred writing utensil finally runs out of ink.

But for the true postcard aficionado, a stellar pen can be a game-changer—just as it can for writers, doodlers, and creatives of all kinds!

Check out the Caran d’Ache by Creative Art Materials, a ballpoint pen widely considered “genuinely a cult object.” Its hexagonal body keeps it from rolling away across the desk, and its multitude of color options make it feel like a perfectly personalized gift.

It’s particularly great for postcarding thanks to the capacity of its “Goliath” ink cartridge, which will provide up to 600 full-sized pages of writing—in other words, thousands of postcards!

It’s available here from Amazon for $21.

Postcard Stamp Dispenser & Stamps

I received a great little postcard stamp dispenser as a gift a couple years ago and I use it all the time.

Unlike letter stamps, postcard stamps are most often sold in rolls of 100—which makes them easy to store, but also unwieldy if not corralled into some kind of container.

There are a multitude of postcard stamp dispensers available around the internet: Particularly fun are the little mailbox-shaped ones, such as this laser-cut desk accessory made from cherrywood, this modern oak-and-walnut version, and this vintage US Mail blue box, all available on Etsy for between $19 and $35.

Their petite size makes them a perfect stocking stuffer. Bonus points if you include a roll of postcard stamps ($40 for 100 at your local post office)!

Coffee, Tea, or Cocoa

Nothing pairs with a cozy afternoon of postcard writing better than a warm drink.

Pick out a local pound of coffee beans in their favorite roast; an herbal comfort tea such as mint or rooibos; or a gourmet hot chocolate mix and a pretty mug.

Personally, for gift-giving I love the HWY 20 House Blend from Blue Star Coffee Roasters ($13); the sustainably-sourced Farm & Forest blend from Flying Bird Botanicals, available in both loose leaf and teabag form ($15); and the Dreamy Dark Chocolate Hot Cocoa from Moonstruck Chocolate Co. ($12.75).

Mailing Address Book

A caveat here: Longtime snail mailers tend to have already established their system for keeping track of addresses, and likely won’t want to begin again unless their current system hasn’t been working well.

That said, a physical address book is a great gift for recent converts to postcard writing—for instance, those who are just getting into postcard swaps, or for anyone who is finding that a list in their phone or creating dozens of labels in Google Maps is becoming inconvenient.

Check out these lovely address notebooks from Boxclever, a British paper goods company focused on organizational tools, which offers both large (7” x 8.5”) and small (5” x 8”) versions of their address book in miscellaneous colors and patterns. Both sizes hold over four hundred addresses, and they’re an economical gift at $16.99 and $12.99 respectively.

Postcards From Their Friends

For a super-special gift that they’ll never forget (it might even make them cry), send a private note to each of their closest friends and family members asking these people to mail them a postcard (or a few) with a short message that will brighten their day.

You can have people do this in time for their birthday or the holidays; anytime thereafter; or even throughout an entire calendar year. It takes a little legwork on the part of you and their friends, but so do most memorable gifts!

This can especially mean a lot if they’ve recently been through a difficult time and could use some cheering up.

Perhaps the smoothest way to do this is to pick out a selection of great postcards yourself, and then mail each one out in an envelope to the people you’re hoping will send them, along with a stamp and a little printed note explaining how, when, and why you’re hoping they’ll do it. Most people will be delighted to take part in a project like this!

Postcards from The Postcard Maven start at $4 apiece with tax and shipping included, and come down to $3 each when you buy five or more. Or, you can simply ask everyone to source their own postcards and send them out.

If your recipient has friends or pen pals around the world, it can be especially fun for them to see the variety of designs, postmarks, and stamps arriving from abroad with each new card.

Postcard Display Frame

Anyone who receives postcards will always have an array of favorite designs—and it turns out there’s only so much space available on the fridge to display them!

Give your recipient an extra-special place to showcase a particular favorite on their bookshelf or desk with this sleek and modern acrylic frame from Poketo, which fits any 4” x 6” postcard (the most commonly available postcard size). Unlike standard photo frames, this one connects at each corner with mini-magnets, making it super-easy to pull apart and swap out whenever they receive a new fave!

With clear acrylic on both the front and back, they’ll also be able to see the message on the card, which most photo frame options don’t offer.

They’re available here for $24.

Oh, and one last idea—postcards make great gift tags when you’re wrapping your package, too!

Still searching for the perfect postcard gift? Why not simply pick out a few great cards they’ll love and wrap them up? Check out our full range of mix-and-match postcard collections here, and take 25% off when you buy five or more!