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

Lamp post caches (LPCs) are for disabled people and they should be grateful

Clan Riffster

Post #23

From:  They are ALWAYS in the lamp post.

(oakenwood @ Mar 16 2010, 08:59 AM) Which brings me to the topic of disabled cachers. Some folks are going to have a hard time going after caches that are hard to reach, but will be glad there are so many lamp post caches. One man's meat is another man's poison. Because cripples like uninspired hides? As an ole fat cripple myself, I resent the implication that lame hides should be appreciated by the mobility impaired. A cache can be both wheelchair accessible and creative. Shoving a film can under a lamp post kilt is an utter void of creativity. I know there are some who claim that they thought the first lamp post hide they found was clever, but even if that's true, the second one they find would surely lack even that little bit of luster. A whole series? Tedium. Don't hide lame caches, then claim that you are doing cripples a favor. Us cripples appreciate creativity as much as anybody.