Hoping she'll plant in Michigan, din iad în paradis.

The Pink Dragon and I made a girls' weekend of it and recovered all that we could find in all New Bern cemeteries. I have marked all we couldn't find as missing. We left a public message on all we recovered. TPD has them all and owners should contact her for return arrangements.

While pulling boxes yesterday, a delightful woman named Helen approached us and asked if we were letterboxers. She works with an organization that helps preserve these historic places and also gives tours within the cemetery. She showed us the grave that started it all. She informed us that organizations like hers are spending thousands of dollars to repair not only graves, but the brick and stone walls in these cemeteries. She personally had no issues with LBs in bushes and trees. However, since these were most often covered with bricks, we recovered those as well, returning the bricks to the nearby walls or graves.

Helen was very impressed by the extensive history included in these particular clues. Then she shared how much fun she and her husband had finding over 60 stamps the previous day. She had seen us poking around from her kitchen window and invited us back to her beautiful home where she had all of the stamps in a bucket. She was hoping to find a way to get them back to the owners.

Before leaving to look for any remaining LBs, she gave us bottles of water and told us to come back to her home if we needed a restroom.

Truly, Helen is a hero for saving all those stamps. She enjoyed it some much, she will likely continue to hunt. I said her trail name should be The Rescuer.

TPD and I have her name and address and plan to send her a thank you notes with some LB love. If anyone would like to do the same, you can PM me for her info.

Great job!! And props to Helen also for sure!

Thank you both so much for recovering the boxes.

What is a letterbook? I tried looking in the FAQs and there was some stuff about virtual, but it looks like no one has contributed to that board for over 10 years! I would love to know more! I am intrigued!

Thx for the question. Pasting from AQ's glossary: "letterbook: a letterbox hidden inside of a hollowed-out book, usually planted in libraries or bookstores." We have a handful around here, and they're such fun! Folks can get to them in all sorts of weathery-weather.

To make it a search, people sometimes make a game of it with scavenger hunt-style clues to reveal the call number. Other times librarians keep the box behind the desk and you only have to ask for it. I am finding that librarians are willing to add the call number of the letterbook into their catalog as a non-circulating item. This helps them keep track of what it is, and it prevents the letterbook from accidentally being discarded with rotating staff.

This is my first letterbook plant [Box #382871] With thanks to Arf!'s excellent recycled letterbook and fantastic carving skills.

I'll be in Alaska end of August, so am excited to see a few folks going before me.

I'm hoping to plant a box or two myself. Will be mainly in the touristy areas so thinking placement could get tricky

How neat!! Our local library (Benbrook) has a huge makerspace and is very engaged with members so I bet they’d like to do that! The bigger ones in Ft. Worth are a bit stricter but they do have a few who keep hidden ATCs at the circulation desk for trades so I bet they’d like a letterbook too!

I was looking for ways to tell librarians about letterboxing, and I came across this 2012 book in a Google Books Search: Librarian's Guide to Passive Programming: Easy and Affordable Activities for All Ages by Emily T. Wichman. Also on Goodreads and Amazon. I'm sure there's more out there.

Zoinks! Like how how many cards are in a deck anyway man?

There are 21 listed in the drop down:

The Magician
The Popess
The Emperess
The Emperor
The Pope
The Lovers
The Chariot
Strength
The Hermit
Wheel of Fortune
Justice
The Hanged Man
Death
Temperance
The Devil
The Tower
The Star
The Moon
The Sun
Judgement
The World

Most of the letterboxes I discover in libraries are magnetic hiding beneath metal bookshelves but I have found 1 letterbook!

SHERLOCK MILES! And only your 11th? Seems like you've been here longer:)

So glad you are part of my world - you make it so much better!

Enjoy your day!
Kathleen

Happy Cake Day, Sherlock Miles! 🎉🎉

I'll be heading to DARTMOOR for the next two weeks!! I have lots of adventures planned, including attending The Meet and hitting the moors with locals.

For anyone who has been boxing in Dartmoor: any secret tips? Favorite boxes or locations? Cool boxers I should make sure to meet? Awesome pubs?

For anyone: what questions do you have about Dartmoor letterboxing? I'll try to get as many questions answered while I'm there!

HUGS!!

Thank you!

Tell us everything when you get back! I want to box in Dartmoor sometime in the next few years!

Absolutely, I'm planning to put together some sort of guide about Dartmoor letterboxing for folks coming from North American letterboxing, and if all goes as planned, also a fun little video exploring the differences between the two styles... with some special guests... ;)

We figured out the first location. It is many miles from here.

Possibly if we are in the area.

Get with Mark and Sue Pepe - they have organized a trip there in the past I believe and they are super nice.

Definitely want to hear all about it when you get back.

Sounds like an amazing trip! We can’t wait to hear all about it.

(I assume Cranmere Pool is on your list.)

Since we’re coming to FL, would anyone be interested in trading carved stamps? I would bring you a carved stamp with either an AK theme or a FL theme to plant in FL and I would take your stamp home to AK to plant. I would list you as the carver of course, and I would expect the same in kind. If so, message me and let’s get some ideas going! We can meetup and get others together as well. No box needed for exchange, just the stamp.

Like man, I just checked the world wide webs and there's lots and lots of other tarot cards like cups and saucers and swords and tentacles? I want to be careful because a teacher once told me I wasn't playing with a full deck!

Happy Happy Day to You, my dear! xxx

Happy Cake Day, Toni-Lynn!!

Greetings!

I am rather a new letterboxer here, and I had an idea for a bit of a harder puzzle box, but my idea involves a stamp carved out of wood. I was wondering; has anyone else carved a stamp out of wood and left it for someone to find? If so, how did it stand up to weather and use? And what kind of wood was used?

I haven't. But two things come to mind.
1) The wood would need to be sealed with something to keep moisture (environment or inks) from warping or swelling the wood.
2) The stamping approach would be different, since the wood has no flexibility. Rather than stamping onto the paper, one would need to ink the wood surface, set it facing up, and apply the paper over it, rubbing well, much like a lino print.

If you are seeing saucers and tentacles in your card readings, that sounds to me like a prediction of an alien invasion.