phishychick

Thank you Kfam for posting the photo (and for the invite)! Perhaps I will try my hand at Geocaching sometime. Also, thank you to Team Teebow for keeping your eyes peeled and for spreading the word. Thanks to all for your help and good wishes!

sorry you'll have to cut and paste it- I'm not sure how to make it a workable link!

In the future I will make sure to write "this is NOT a geocache/trade item" somewhere in my letterbox. I had never even heard of geocaching before this incident, but now that I know I'll take extra care. I wrote all over the top of the box "this is a letterbox! this is not trash!" so I figured that would be enough...someone mentioned earlier that sometimes it doesn't matter how many signs you leave behind, sometimes people don't read what's written. It makes sense to write it directly on the stamp itself. I am getting the feeling that whoever found the stamp probably doesn't come onto this site very often (and may not ever post on the message boards). This thread (along with the thread on the New England forum) has been going strong for several days now and everyone has been really cool and supportive. Right now my best hope is that the stamp will somehow be traded to someone who has read about this whole incident. New England n00b- the stamp is of the Brunswick-Topsham Bridge, which spans the Androscoggin River connecting Brunswick to Topsham. I will try to find a link to a photo of what the bridge looks like and post it here. It's kind of like an erector-set type of bridge (the stamp has a lot of little triangles carved out of it to give the image of criss-crossing beams). The bridge is green and so is the inkpad I left in the box, but sometimes letterboxers will use their own inkpads so I'm not sure if the predominant color left behind on the actual stamp is still green. It's a rectangular stamp, just a piece of Mastercarve (it's not mounted on wood or any type of backing- in fact, the back looks pretty carved up because I cut a thick piece of Mastercarve in two to make a thinner stamp). Okay, here is the site where I got the photo of the bridge from (I printed the photo and carved the stamp from that- I left out the building in the background and just focused on the bridge; the bottom of the stamp hints at rocks/water). By the way, many thanks to whoever "bitchypoo" is- it's a great photo. When you go to the site, scroll down through the other vacation photos- I believe it's the 17th one on the page. www.bitchypoo.com/2001/July/05.html

Unfortunately there are only two people listed who found that cache around the time my stamp went missing; I have emailed both of them and neither of them have it. What a smart idea- to carve the letterbox name into the back of a stamp. Wish I'd thought of that! Lesson learned. Funhog_Lb: that's another smart idea I'll have to remember in the future- contacting the neighboring caches just to give people a heads up.

Someone on the New England forum suggested that I log a note on the page for the "Mills of Yesterday and Today" cache- perhaps this is what they were looking for when they found my letterbox instead. Hopefully this will point me in the right direction!

D & K- that is an excellent idea, I'm going to do that now. Thanks to everyone for the help and good wishes.

First of all, I want to thank everyone who has responded. You have all been very kind and helpful when you could've easily just said, "well, tough luck!" I appreciate it. I posted on the New England forum as Briansnat suggested as well but have yet to get any responses. They didn't date the log book, but it must've happened recently because I got an email from some letterboxers on September 9th saying that they found my box but the stamp and inkpad were gone and the scratch pad and pen had been left behind.

Yes, the logbook was still there. Greenebbs left a sticker in the book so I contacted him since that was the last name written. He said he saw the stamp but left it where he found it. On the next page someone wrote "we took a stamp and inkpad and left a pen and scratch pad" but that was it- no signature or contact info (which was why I contacted Greenebbs- I thought maybe he was with the person who wrote the note). I wouldn't have even known that the stamp was missing but I got an email from a couple of letterboxers who live in CT- they gave me the heads up that they found my box but the stamp was gone.

Thank you Sputnik and Briansnat for the advice. Turns out there is a cache nearby so I emailed one of the folks who recently visited the area. The reason I think it might be a geocacher who found the stamp is because a pen and a scratch pad were left behind and I understand that geocaching involves taking things and leaving other things instead- seems odd that someone who stumbled upon a box would leave something behind rather than just taking what they found. If it was a store-bought stamp I really wouldn't care- I don't care about the inkpad. Thanks for the good wishes.

Okay, I emailed Greenebbs and he says he left the stamp right where it was and that someone else must've taken it. Am I pretty much SOL at this point? Is there any way I can put out an APB for my stamp? If Geocaching is about taking things and leaving them elsewhere, it would stand to reason that it will turn up somewhere else, but I guess it could end up anywhere. Please, if anyone comes across a stamp of the Brunswick-Topsham Bridge (it's like an erector-set type of bridge) along with a square green inkpad, contact me. Also, if there is a way to "flag" an item, let me know. I appreciate the help. (By the way, I am in Brunswick, ME)

Thank you for your help. I found the member list page and sent an email; hopefully we will resolve this. The outside of the letterbox says "this is a letterbox! this is not trash!" all over it, so there's really no mistaking it.

Hi, I am a letterboxer and I know nothing about Geocaching except that a Geocacher took the stamp and inkpad out of my letterbox the other day. This bums me out. I really want my stamp back; I carved it and it was time consuming to do. They left a note identifying themselves as "Greenebbs" but didn't leave any contact info. They did leave a pen and a scratch pad behind, but I have no interest in these items. Does anyone know "Greenebbs"? If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks- Phishychick