AS three-year-old Sam Parsons put his 24 postcards into the letterbox, little did he know he had set a new world record.
But those two dozen missives – combined with thousands of others from residents in the village – were enough to break the record for the most postcards posted in one place in a day.
Sam's cards took the total over the previous record of 5,216, set by people in Tamilnadu in India.
Keyworth's new record stood at 8,033 postcards when the record attempt ended at 5.30pm yesterday.
All of Sam's cards will today begin arriving back at his home in Dale Road, Keyworth.
His mum, Liz Parsons, 36, said: "Sam sent all the cards to himself so that he can keep them as a souvenir.
"It's brilliant that he helped to break the record. This event has really brought everyone together."
People queued out of the door at Keyworth Post Office, in Main Street, to get chance to post their cards. Some posted more than 60 to locations across the world.
Each had a special world record attempt postmark.
Tony Wardle, 66, of Brookview Drive, sent one of his 15 postcards to US President Barack Obama at The White House.
In his message to the most powerful man on the planet, Mr Wardle said: "Greetings Mr President. Record broken at 11.55hrs – still going strong."
The retired computer engineer said: "He was just a name that I came up with and I thought it would be interesting. I hope that we'll get a response."
The attempt was organised by Keyworth resident Brian Lund with the help of staff at the post office.
Mr Lund, who runs a postcard business called Reflections of a Bygone Age, said: "I read about a town in the US attempting to break the record and I thought we could give it a go here in Keyworth.
"We've been planning this for six months and it's great that the community turned out to support it. The first people came in at 7.40am and we must have had more than 2,000 turn up."
A total of 27 postcard designs were made, each sponsored by clubs and businesses in the area.
Mr Lund hopes the stunt will have raised more than £4,000 towards the building of a new teenage adventure park at South Wolds School in Keyworth.
Julie Marchbank, a counter clerk at the post office, said it had been a memorable day.
"It's been manic but great fun," she said.
"We had queues of people running out of the door – we've never seen a day like it."