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Help! A Geocacher Took My Stamp/inkpad!


phishychick

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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

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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)

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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?

I don’t think so.. Someone should know better than I, but I think only a small percent of geocachers post to these forums regularly enough to see your message and I don't think there's any other way to send a general message.

 

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.

A cardinal rule of geocaching is you must sign the log. Greenebbs signed your log, but didn’t take the stamp. This suggests to me it wasn’t a geocachers who took your stamp.

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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)

 

I assume there is a geocache near your letterbox and your box is being mistaken for the cache. Find out which cache it is (a zipcode search might help) and see who logged the cache online. You can then e-mail each person and ask.

 

You can also try the New England forum here. That's a shot in the dark, as a small percentage of geocachers visit the forums.

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Then there IS the distinct possiblity that a non caching, non-letterboxing individual did accidentallycome across your LB. happens all thetime to geocachers. I have learned never to underestimate the power of the curiousity of those not in the know, especially kids.

 

I say Kids, becasue adults are seldom curious enough to go distrubing something that somone else may have pu there on purpose and and adulty would most definitly NOT have taken anything from it.

 

I hope you find your stamp, It must be a real adventure to find one you like . BTW, my leterbox 'kit' dissappeared on me too. however I am pretty certain it is somewhere in the depths of my caching closet

Edited by virgo91967
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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.

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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.

Have you checked your log/stamp book, or was that taken, too?

Maybe it will say something in there from a non-letterboxer?

 

You said there is a cache nearby, I agree - send a message to anyone on that cache page who logged the cache and ask if any of them found the box by mistake. Perhaps whoever it was didn't know that they found a letterbox (no matter how well marked you have something, someone will come along and not pay attention) and thought it was a cache.

 

I'm sorry that this happened. Cachers are - 90% of the time - really really good people.

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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.

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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.

It might be a good idea to put a big note inside saying This is not the Geocach you bozo!

 

I found a letterbox not far from one of my caches and noticed some logs from geocachers. I taped a note saying "this is not the geocache" to the log book.

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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

what a bummer :wacko: maybe you could try some of the other caches around that area and comepare the note to the other sigs in the log of the cache maybe he found those caches and left contact info? :wacko:

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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.

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Gosh I am so sorry to hear about this. I understand what you mean about the stamp. I did 4 of them before I finally settled on 2 that resembled any kind of stamp. I am almost ready to go do my first LB. I sure hope you find yours. Keep me posted on whats happening. I was reading evryones post about it and the ideas on how to find seem good. I actually live in Ca so when I start LB I will keeep a eye out just in case the person traveled this way. Why anyone would do this is beyond me. I think it was accidental but one never knows. Take care and good luck M

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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!

The person who took it will probably only notice your note if they have the cache on their watchlist. You're probably better off e-mailing the last half dozen finders..or anybody who found it about the time your stamp went missing.

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Cross your fingers... here in the Pacific Northwest a well-known letterboxer, dvn2rckr, had one of her stamps go missing. Luckily it had the name of the letterbox carved on it and a kindly geocacher came across it in a cache a hundred miles from it's original home. The cacher recognized what it was, searched the LbNA site for the letterbox, contacted the owner and reuinted them!

 

I have lost letterbox stamps, too and know how rotten it is. I recently contacted the owners of all caches near one of my boxes. They were glad to put a note in their listings warning folks not to mistake the two. Good Luck on finding your lost treasure.... Funhog

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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.

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phishychick, I am very sorry this has happened to you. Some people just honestly don't know any better. IT stinks that you lost such a personal item like that.

 

I have not re-read the entire thread yet, but may I suggest in addition to the Letterbox name on teh back of the stamp, you also carve "NOT A TRADE ITEM - PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE" or something similar? Hopefully then the letterbox-ignorant will not take it.

 

Again, sorry for your loss :blink:

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I sure hope that these people are being honest and really didn't take your stamp. I have a feeling that one of them is fibbing to save embarassment....I hope I'm wrong....

 

This is a very small trail and stops at just two people............

To be fair, there are those that cache and do not even sign the log. But here's hoping the stamp returns mysteriously anyway.

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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

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phishychick,

I'm surprised that no one has extended an invitation for you to join us in our hobby. You seem pretty cool yourself and I'm sure that you would be an excellent geocacher.

Our hobbies aren't really that different, I think you might enjoy a cache or two!

 

Best wishes in your stamp recovery effort.

 

Cool bridge, by the way!

44af9655-d302-41be-8a3d-ea9c2b9f6907.jpg

Edited by Kfam
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PhishyChick ~

 

So sorry to hear about your missing stamp. I can relate. I am both letterboxer and geocacher too. I have had a tiger I carved go missing as well. It was in a combined letterbox/geocache hybrid. However, I think it was muggles (non cachers or LB'ers) that took it. I have another one that has done just fine close by our home. I have written on the Box LETTERBOX & GEOCACHE and on the back of the stamp it says PLEASE DO NOT TAKE and that seems to work just fine. Everyone comes and goes thru it and its fine. Best of luck retrieving what would seems like a tedious stamp to carve. ~ Lori Darlin in both worlds

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