"They were returned to me, and I was told they were not good enough."

Holy cow!! That's just completely awful!
I remember those first trackers. I know there were some incredible carvers back then and there still are, but WOW! That was a bit harsh. How very discouraging and unkind.

Everyone has such different carving skill levels, and especially when first starting out.
Some people could even be seasoned carvers, but struggle with carving because of artistic ability, or even arthritis, tendonitis, eye problems, or other health or disability issues but try their best.
I've had my share of tendonitis and eye issues, but I love carving, so I try my best.

Kindness, gentleness, appreciation, and encouragement are so important.

I love every stamp I find. The fact that someone took the time to create a stamp, carve it to the best of their ability, research a hiding place, and place it there for me to find is enough to me.

I really appreciate this Letterboxing community and the joy that Letterboxing has brought over the last 20+ years.

It is fun to look through the first carves album and see how people's carving skills have changed over time. Everybody starts off as a newbie.
I hope new carvers are encouraged and keep carving stamps!

A few spots left!

https://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.php?trackerId=12402

One less open spot now ...

I was able to resist when first listed, then spent just a little too long on the word list.

Thank you, TAP! Even the word “loo” itself has so much potential! 🤪

It’s full now! Thanks, all!

Oh 😆. I didn’t look at the clues, I just read the title and reacted because I got excited.

I will have to make some one of these days. Gatorade use to make a Cucumber Melon flavor and it was my absolute favorite. I haven’t seen it in so long, though. I’m assuming cucumber ice cream has a flavor kind of like that. Definitely willing to eat some, should I come across it haha

I placed a number of letterboxes west of Denison Texas. When I search for letterboxes as choose Denison with 30 mile radius (the letterboxes are easily within the search radius), they do not show up. If I choose city directory, and then choose Denison, they show up. If I choose simple search, and enter Denison, only one letterbox shows up.

Please let me know what I am needing to do when I create letterboxes so that they show up in all searches.

thank you

It’s likely the epicenter for Denison is wrong. I’m not entirely sure how to check but I’ve seen GreenTortuga remedy that before. It’s also possible there’s more than one Denison that the simple search is choosing first. Does it specifically say Denison, Texas when making that search?

other letterboxes in and around Denison are showing up. And other letterboxes that are closer to and further from Denison are showing up. So it seems the site is finding Denison ok .. just not my boxes.

What are some of the box names or AQ numbers? I can try to see if they pop up for another user while I’ve got a free minute.

Here are a few:

LBP: Celebration - It's Egg Hunting Time! #388810

LBP: Celebration - Exciting Fireworks! #388807

LBP: Celebration - Happy Valentine's Day #388800

LBP - Nature: Farmhouse #388820

thank you for your help

I recommend looking at how other boxes are set up. For example, I’d use addresses, not GPS coordinates. I also recommend adding the clues to the designated area in the AQ add-a-box format, not in the comments. Good luck, and happy letterboxing!

i just did a city direction search for texas and then denison. they all showed up find that way.
smile

Thank you ... for the location ... instead of gps coords: say, N 33° 26.484' W 096° 31.893', i entered CFR9+H98 Van Alstyne, Texas (Which is what google gave me).. would this be better?
thanks
wade

The event was Saturday evening. I taught a small group of geocachers about REAL letterboxes and led a hands-on session teaching them how to carve a stamp.

They LOVED it. Everyone who thought carving would be beyond their abilities completed a small stamp, all of which looked pretty good!

As my gift, everyone (8 ppl) went home with a set of carving tools and a block of pink stuff, in addition to their completed stamp.

Ooh does the Gatorade have sugar in it? I bet it would make a refreshing slushy too. (We have a slushy maker but it has to be a liquid that has sugar- diet drinks don’t freeze well.)

why not just list it as in denison? if you are listing in on the geo site as well then list your gps there town here? i would say that 99% of letterboxers do not use gps.
smile

Not real calligraphy - I'm not that adept!

But I've been seeing some beautiful examples of calligraphy online and I've been tempted to try my hand at carving some of it. So last night I transferred an image to pink stuff and gave it a go.

The lower one is what I printed off of the internet, the top one is what I stamped from the carve. It's LTC sized.

Link to image.

It was actually pretty fun - I might try more.

Tracker theme?

This is so so so pretty!! Very curious to know how you got the lines to be so clean too! Thin lines are still the bane of my existence but I’m trying to get better at them haha. I write and draw with fountain pens and I’d love to have the confidence to carve calligraphy like this too.

all ok ... if i just list it in denision ... how would i give the exact location for a person to find it?

Thank you, the key to thin lines is good light, magnification and patience.

Sharp tools are also a big help in carving the second side of a thin line. That helps to keep the rubber from deforming.

And finally, keep the tool at a low angle and carve shallow. You can come back later and go deeper if needed. Someone told me that when I was starting out and it's really been a big help. Because my default is dig in and carve deep. 🤪

Hope that helps!

for the letterboxing you would have to change the clue somewhat. instead of gps in the location give the name of the park, trail, forest, where ever the starting location would be. then for a letterbox clue you give directions to the box. for example take this trail to this spot. go to 3rd blaze. 235 degrees to boulder. under left corner.
look at some of the planters clues in your area for how they write their clues. that might help. be however creative or straight forward you would like to be in the clues. keep mind that the majority of letterboxers are not geocachers and are likely to skip a clue that only has gps in it.
smile

Everything DZECP said, the same path I've used to get to pretty decent carvings. And I would add this one thing.

The softer the material, the more difficult it is to keep the rubber from bending away from your tool. I know a lot of people tend to avoid the firmer materials for a variety of reasons, but they hold up when carving fine lines or tiny details much better than the softer materials.

There may be several problems here.

There are two default search settings which might be hiding the search results. "Hide my plants" will not allow you to see your own boxes. "Hide boxes with no clues" will also not allow your boxes to show up, as they do not have clues. Notes you make in the comments are not clues! You should really consider putting clues where they belong. Many people ignore boxes with no clues.

There is no problem using GPS coords for the location. We do it all the time as the parking for many of our plants does not have a street address. In case it's not obvious, don't use the exact box location for the coords, it is customary to indicate the trailhead or parking area where you begin your quest.

However, there is one rather odd behavior of search that can make your boxes disappear. If you list the box with a large radius, then it might not show up on a search with a limited radius. So check what radius you used for the boxes which do not show up. If you are using exact GPS coords, the radius specified in your listing should be zero (or at least close to zero).

When I search your boxes in Denison Texas, with a search radius of 30, I get 42 results, and with a search radius of 20, I only get 1, so you have some rather large radius info in you listings. Did you intentionally want to make the location vague?

https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/product?gtin=00052000135084

I was wrong, it was Cucumber Lime and APPARENTLY I can still purchase it!!! And there is sugar! I bet that would make a great slushy

Definitely! I have arthritis and fibromyalgia and sometimes I realize I’ve committed to a carve and I’m in so much pain that I have to scrap the idea and do something way simpler so I try to get creative with colors and backings and stuff and just hope that nobody is too offended that it’s not as good as my previous card or my next card.

No matter what I always do my best - sometimes my body just has a different idea of what my best is on a particular day!

That’s what the clues are for.

When you first listed boxes I clicked on the map for some of them
and as far as I can tell there is no way to find the box/s. There is no clue and the map and google view just shows an area of highway.

I see you have found 7 boxes. Did you follow clues to those boxes?

There are some very informative and helpful tutorials on AQ on planting boxes and other aspects of boxing.

It's hard to know why your boxes don't show up without knowing the precise search that you are running. Does your search hide boxes that you've planted or found? Does your search hide boxes without clues listed? These kind of details can make a difference.

Some people suggested that maybe Denison was in the wrong location--and those things can happen, but I checked and the location of Denison is fine so that's not the reason.

Your box listings, however, do have issues that would make it very common for them not to be shown in searches. Some people trip over the fact that AQ might suppress your own boxes if your default settings are to hide your own boxes (you already know where your boxes are, so why would you be trying to search for them, after all?) and that could be the case with you, but you never shared your search so who knows?

Your boxes also don't have clues listed and the default settings on AQ will suppress those because (almost) nobody wants to look for boxes without clues. It is possible to change your default settings, but that's not going to help others find your boxes. You should also include a clue with your box--even if it's nothing more than a GPS coordinate because you want to hide a "geocache-style" type of box.

Listing just the GPS coordinates of your box as the location can also cause your boxes not to show up for some searches. For instance, if someone runs an area search for boxes in Texas, your boxes won't show up at all because you never actually listed that your box is in Texas. If you have a box in Denison and someone runs an area search for boxes that are in (or near) Denison, your box won't show up because AQ doesn't know what town your box is in or near. If you include Denison as the city name, AQ can match it up.

Locations on AQ are largely based on addresses, cross streets, park names, etc. GPS coordinates are for computers, and the people who use this website are human. =) You can still include the GPS coordinates of the starting point in your location as the "name" or "address", but fill out the rest of the location information too. The more you exclude, the fewer searches your box will show up in. It's entirely possible as well that the "name" of your location (the GPS coordinates) don't actually match the GPS location for the box. The "name" can be absolutely anything. I did look at a couple of your boxes and the name and GPS coordinates do match, but I didn't check all of your boxes and if some of them are wrong, it'll display what you might think is the correct coordinate but actually process it for searches using an incorrect coordinate.

But I suspect if you fix the location information (or rather, fill in all the location details) and add clues to your boxes, they'll probably start showing up.

I'll also point out--the location is supposed to be where the person needs to go to start their hunt for the letterbox--it's not the specific location of the letterbox itself. The starting point should be a parking lot, or a trailhead or something that helps people get to where they need to be when they start reading the clues.

There is a spot when listing boxes that you can list the precise GPS coordinates of the letterbox for your own reference in the "Series Details" section of listing a box. It's entirely optional and not something other people can see, but it can be handy if you have trouble remembering precisely where you planted a box or if someone has trouble finding your box and they want to know if they were close to the right area or not or something.

You might also check out your default preferences when it comes to searches to see if there are any other defaults being used that might cause your boxes not to show up as expected.

Anyhow, hope this helps!

-- Ryan

One more thing... New prescription glasses. Work like a charm too. Don't forget your own eyes. ;)

Plus, try holding the rubber at a different angle and look at the sides of it. It helps to see those boogers that are always in the way. Learned that one over the winter with my bad eyes. Doing better now. New script helps a lot!

I recently had all my carving tools sharpened by Kirbert… best letterboxing decision I’ve ever made. For the first time, I feel like I can get micro details carved correctly. It’s definitely been a huge help. They are way sharper now than even when I first bought them!