Letterbox hybrids…why aren’t there more?

[Trekkin and Birdin]

We enjoy finding these types of caches when we can, and wonder why more people don’t add a few of these to their list of caches owned? It’s a little extra work to create the listing for letterboxing.org, but not that much. If one doesn’t feel they can create a handcarved stamp, it’s easy enough to buy one. We own four so far, one of which has a store-bought stamp cause I ran out of time before we wanted to get it out there.

It’s fun to compare who finds them, too—geocachers or letterboxers. We were close to about three last week on our DeLorme run and just didn’t have the time (or autorouting) to get to them. Hopefully on another trip.

[gotta run]

I believe it’s because they’re still a little bit of an oddball, and they take a bit more work to put together. That’s not meant to be a disparaging comment, it’s just a fact–you can put out a regular cache with just a container and log book, whereas a letterbox takes more to put together.

Right now 5 of our 80 owned caches are letterboxes. Four are hand-carved stamps and one is an “antique” stamp from an old schoolhouse stamp set.

What I will say is that the drawback of the “hybrid” is that you have to be extra careful to leave good instructions. Geocachers are used to finding swag and I’m always afraid a stamp will inadvertently be taken but so far not. And on the other hand, letterboxers aren’t real familiar with the swag-trading so we’ve found that our letterbox caches tend to get depleted.

On the Left Side of the Road...

[MikeB]

I think part of the confusion has to do with classification. I have seen the following variations listed as letterbox hybrids:

1)Traditional/unknown/multi geocache with listed coordinates that can ALSO be found with clues from a letterboxing database. They will have a separate logbook and stamper for those wishing to log as a letterbox.

2)An unknown cache with coordinates that will (maybe) get you fairly close to your starting point. After that, the cache is found using written directions and clues. Although the cache has a stamp and separate logbook, it won’t necessarily be listed on a letterboxing database.

My guess is that there are a few multis and unknowns out there that could be classified as letterbox hybrids. To the extent that letterbox hybrids are a subset of unknown caches (which is a tiny fraction of the total number of caches, with the exception of the Fox Valley), and to the extent that there are a lot fewer letterboxers (who seem to be way less numbers obsessed than the average geocacher), letterboxing will probably never get big. They are fun — I really enjoyed the two that I have found.

[Author]

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