New Years Postcard Lottery 2015

I had almost forgotten about the annual 年賀状お年玉 (New Years Postcard Lottery).
(Click here to read an earlier post I’ve written about it).

What reminded me of it was the fact that today is 「旧正月」 (Chinese New Years).

On January 19th, 2015, the winning numbers were announced.

Check your postcards, if you have a winning number, you have until July 21st (2015) to bring winning cards to a post office (in Japan) to claim your prize.

The winning numbers and prizes for this year are:

Place	Prize	Odds	Number of winners	Winning Numbers
1st（last five digits）	¥10,000	1 in 100,000	33,185	82243
2nd（last four digits）	Various local goods	1 in 10,000	331,858	1351
3rd（last two digits）	Commemorative postage stamps	2 in 100 (1 in 50)	66,371,640	27 or 30

Click here to visit the Japan Post “New Years Postcard Lottery” page (in Japanese).

Xmas cards? New Years cards?

In Japan, Xmas cards aren’t commonly exchanged — but 年賀状 (New Years postcards) are.

When I lived in America, everyone gave Xmas cards to friends and family.  I had never heard of a New Years card until I came to Japan.

I have been sending and receiving New Years postcards every year since I came to Japan … but these days, more and more people in Japan … especially young people don’t bother to hand-write “real” paper New Years postcards — they just send ケータイ年賀状 (cellphone New Years postcards).

It’s not the same. I think people appreciate getting a hand-written card.
My kids love their cellphones … but they still write New Years postcards by hand, I’m happy to say.

How about you?  Do you send hand-written Xmas or New Years cards?
Email cards?
None at all?

かもメール

As I mentioned in a post last January, 年賀状 (New Years Postcards) are very popular in Japan.
These postcards have a six-digit number printed on the back in the lower right-hand corner, and every January the Japanese post office draws random numbers for a Postcard lottery in which people with postcards that have a winning number receive a prize.

Click here to read that post.

Well, Japan also has a tradition of sending postcards to friends and family in the summer. This tradition isn’t practiced anywhere near to the extent that the New Years postcards are…but there’s also a Post Office Lottery for these cards as well.

Here are the winning numbers for the Japanese Post Card lottery for Summer 2009:

For the “A” Prize (¥200,000):
▲ 035890
▲ 723606
▲ 817512

For “B” Prize (a sheet of postage stamps):
▲ any number with the last three digits 352

The last prize (¥10,000):
▲ any number with the last four digits 4452

Did you receive any Summer Postcards this year?
Do any have a winning lottery number on them?

None of the postcards we received this summer won.