What kind of stamp do you put in a letterbox cache?

[+bakerpro895]

What kind of stamp do you put in a letterbox cache? Im planning to hide a letterbox cache but dont know what kind of stamp to put in it.

Thanks,

bakerpro895

[Darwin473]

Technically, any kind of stamp will do. Even the smiley face or heart ones from the dollar shop.

 

My preference is a customised stamp, which includes the cache's GC number. Or the cache name - that way the stamp relates to the cache and when people have their stamp logbook, they can look at the stamp imprint and know where they got it without having to add their own extra notes to the page (though most do anyway).

 

If you live somewhere that the weather is always nice, self inking stamps are ok, but my preference is to supply stamps that aren't self inking. People who are serious about LBH carry their own stamp pads. Self inking ones tend to go brittle in the cold and leak everywhere in the heat!

 

If you have the cash, there are loads of companies who will make custom stamps for you. These are usually about the price of a dinner from a non-fancy restaurant which isn't "too" expensive for a custom item, but be aware that for some reason some people seem to get the idea that the stamps are collectible and take them. So something you can easily replace is a good idea.

 

One cheap way of doing it using a product similar to Speedball Carve (YT video link showing how to use it) - designed to be carved, the tools are relatively cheap and one piece will let you carve a bunch of stamps. The downside is you need to hand carve each one (seems harder than it really is, just needs a bit of patience).

 

A cheaper option can be to use Photopolymer sheet (also YT video - crappy video but shows how to do it without any fancy tools or machines). The sheets are also relatively cheap, clear printable plastic can also be cheap from some stationary shops and you can use an office printer to do intricate designs with small text. Once you've got your master printed, it's quite easy to produce spares.

 

And if you have the machinery, it's also quite inexpensive to use a laser engraver to produce the stamps, or a 3D printer to make molds and then pour silicone into them. Super cheap to produce replacement stamps - after you've spent a few hundred on the machinery. That's why this option is last - a great option if you were already doing it for other reasons, out of reach for most people and not cost effective if you're doing it just for LBH cache stamps!

[+cerberus1]

2 hours ago, bakerpro895 said:

What kind of stamp do you put in a letterbox cache? Im planning to hide a letterbox cache but dont know what kind of stamp to put in it.

 

By the Help Center, what makes your cache a Letterbox Hybrid is a stamp.  

We have custom stamps for when we head to one, the other 2/3rds almost looks like a three-headed Scooby Doo.  

 - And agreed our next cache (if/when...), a Letterbox hybrid, if it didn't match our cache name, we'd try to create one about whatever we're presenting.

Luckily there's a shop that specializes in that stuff nearby...

So far, the ones that had a stamp just had something already made at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, or similar...Smiley's, animals and the like.

We had a cache called "Don't worry, be Happy" once, and it could simply be a smiley face (to us) if it matched the cache "theme"...

 

[+NanCycle]

My LBH caches are all sports themed and I bought related stamps from Hobby Lobby.  I bought two of each in case I’d have to replace them, but I haven’t needed the extras.