Seeking Lost Letterbox Stamp

[+honeychile]

Greetings! I'm writing to see if you can help locate a missing letterbox stamp. There is a letterbox hidden near the Turtle Rock geocache in Mascot. This is not a geocaching.com letterbox hybrid, but a straight letterbox that depends on clues without a GPS. Occasionally letterboxers and geocachers hide their treasures in close proximity. That was the situation here. The geocache should have had precedence on the location as it was put out in 2007, but the owner of the letterbox didn't know about the cache and placed her letterbox nearby in October, 2009.

 

Several cachers found the letterbox by accident and signed the log, maybe thinking it was the cache. Before the letterbox owner could get out to move her box, one person took the hand-carved stamp from the letterbox and left something in trade. Under ordinary circumstances, the letterboxer would just find another spot and carve another stamp. But in this case the stamp has immense sentimental value because it was carved by a well-known letterboxer who recently died after a long bout with cancer.

 

Hence my post -- yes, I'm finally getting to the point! If you seek out the Turtle Rock cache and happen to find or see the stamp, would you hang onto it and email me? I will be delighted to trade an unactivated, discontinued honeychile geocoin for the hand-carved stamp. The owner of the letterbox indicates there were two signatures by geocachers that might relate to who has the stamp. "Cuddle Buddy" is the name of one and "Seth Hershey" is the other signature. They could very well have been neither geocachers nor letterboxers, but just someone who happened upon the box.

 

I know this doesn't really relate to geocaching, except as it regards the Turtle Rock cache, and if I have offended you or wasted your time, please forgive me. As a geocacher, I like to maintain good relationships with others who share the trails with us and am posting with that in mind.

 

Thanks for any help you can give or thoughts you might have.

 

honeychile

[+TSI!]

did you ever find the stamp?

i hate when non trade items get taken from my caches like really do you need the dadgum logbook or pen?

[+honeychile]

No, it never reappeared. I can't really blame the folks who took it because they probably just thought it was another trade. Thanks for asking, though!

[+Walts Hunting]

Have you tried emailing the fingers of the cache that signed the letterbox log. Or those who logged the cage around that time.I can't imagine anyone getting upset at getting an email with the request you posted.

[+honeychile]

Thanks for the suggestion, but they weren't listed on geocaching.com.

[+FloridaFour]

That stinks. I have letterboxes and put big signs all over mine to ward off traders...I also check to make sure no caches are too close by. But I know it could still happen. I'm hoping my letterbox hybrids will help educate a few more.