DEAR SUN SPOTS: I have a lifelong hobby of trying to collect postcards from all the countries in the world as well as all the states and provinces in Canada.

I currently have all the states. Would Sun Spots have any suggestions on how I might go about making contact with someone in the countries I am missing? I would like the card mailed to me from the country so I have the stamp and postal cancellation.

Maybe your readers know someone who would be willing to send a card? If anyone would like a list of the missing countries, territories and Canadian provinces, they can drop me an email and I will send them the list. The list is too long to print in this column.

Most of the missing countries are in Africa, South and Central America and parts of the old Communist block countries.

How would I make contact with our embassies (if we have one) in the countries I am missing?

I know how successful requests to Sun Spots can be, so I look forward to hearing from your readers. — postcardhobby@yahoo.com

ANSWER: Sun Spots can think of a number of ways to make your request. One is to send your request to the U.S. State Department. You can write to Public Communication Division, PA/PL, Rm. 2206, U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20520, and ask them to forward your request to embassies in the countries you seek.

You could also contact the embassies directly using Google and email. For example, say you are looking for an Ethiopian postcard. Google can provide you with the website for the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia, http://ethiopia.usembassy.gov/, as well as a mailing address, but it would be a lot cheaper to email: pasaddis@state.gov.

You could follow this procedure for each country you seek by googling. For example, “U.S. embassy in Argentina” turns up http://argentina.usembassy.gov, so from that you can extrapolate that the U.S. embassy in each country will have a website that begins with the country’s name, followed by usembassy.gov: i.e., countryname.usembassy.gov.

Another method would be to try contacting the embassies in the U.S. for the countries you seek. Continuing with the Ethiopian example, Sun Spots went online and googled “Ethiopian embassy in Washington, D.C.”

Google came up with www.ethiopianembassy.org and the mailing address. If you write foreign embassies in the United States, they most likely would be willing to honor your request in order to promote their countries with U.S. citizens.

For Canada, you might just write to the government of each province. Those addresses, too, can be obtained by googling. For example, the website for Saskatchewan is www.gov.sk.ca, and they have an online contact form (www.gov.sk.ca/Contact), so it wouldn’t even cost you postage.

Some countries will be extremely difficult, such as, for example, North Korea and Iran, as the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with them, and the former probably doesn’t even allow its citizens to write to the U.S. You could try writing to the government, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. They have a contact form at www.korea-dpr.com.

Getting a postcard from North Korea might even bring you to the attention of the CIA or FBI, as the U.S. government is eager to find out anything it can about this extremely closed society.

Sun Spots suspects that many foreign governments will send you your postcard at no charge, but a few may ask you to pay. With some countries so desperately poor, that seems only fair.

 This column is for you, our readers. It is for your questions and comments. There are only two rules: You must write to the column and sign your name (we won’t use it if you ask us not to). Please include your phone number. Letters will not be returned or answered by mail, and telephone calls will not be accepted. Your letters will appear as quickly as space allows. Address them to Sun Spots, P.O. Box 4400, Lewiston, ME 04243-4400. Inquiries can also be e-mailed to sunspots@sunjournal.com.

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