Lame Letterbox Hybrids

I had the week to myself so I filled everyday with letterboxing and geocaching. Found 13 letterboxes and everyone was fantastic. Oh wait….not everyone. How can that be? Because I found 2 letterbox hybrids.
Begin pet peeve rant…….

Why?! Why do cachers not understand the importance of the stamp? It’s the only thing that sets it apart from any other cache type. I’m so irked that I don’t pussyfoot around in my logs anymore.

The letterbox hybrid “Change a Letter“ - the CO asks that people play the game Change-a-Letter e.g. SNOW becomes SLOW becomes SLOP etc in their logs. The box is off a service road by an expressway, near a hydro tower, in the thick bushes and vines, under a few pieces of discarded lumber. Inside is a “Hello Kitty” plastic dollar store stamp. This was placed by a 30-something-year-old guy, not a child.

Here’s my comment:

Tuesday, 26 July 2011
A letterbox is all about the stamp. It’s the only thing that sets it apart from a traditional or a multi or a puzzle cache. The little child’s kitty stamp has no tie-in with the location or the cache’s word game theme.
For more information about letterboxing have a look at atlasquest.com. Ideally a letterbox should have a unique one-of-a-kind stamp in the box – a custom made stamp or a hand carved stamp. Something that defines the box and when collected shows that the finder found that particular box because the imprint is unique.

The stamp:

The Hello Kitty stamp - 2nd row, 3rd/4th from the left

The second box was a little better.
It at least had a commercial stamp that matched the theme of the box - a dice stamp for a box entitle "The Die is Cast" next to a Civic Center that the CO equated with a Roman Coliseum.

The box was in a weedy, garbage strewn area between the parking lot and a railroad track.

 This is more like what a letterbox stamp should look like:

Handcarved by Springchick

A custom made stamp

A collection of letterbox stamp images

A custom made stamp and letterbox for Ridgefield's 300th Anniversary