Springing For Patches

Happy Spring! Here are the latest tidbits of news related to the historic traveling exhibit of letterboxing patches.

In case you were wondering, the New York Letterbox Hiking Challenge is still on… and it’s bigger and better than ever! You may remember that back in 2009, the Challenge went out to log 25 miles of hiking while finding, planting, and maintaining letterboxes in the state of New York. Anyone who met the challenge qualified for a nifty embroidered patch.

There are now additional patches available for anyone who logs 50, 75 or 100 New York letterboxing miles. Now that Spring is in the air, the timing couldn’t be better for getting out there on the trail! The new patches are a result of a partnership between Jackbear and Sahalie, who helped create the original Challenge, and the LetterboxingPatches.com website. The project was initiated under the terms of the Cooperative Patch Production Program, which is intended to encourage the creation of new letterboxing patch designs. (Obviously, my personal favorite is the 75 mile patch, which depicts a backpack covered in patches!)

All four patches are now available from Jackbear and Sahalie at local gatherings, or can be purchased online at LetterboxingPatches.com, where the proceeds will go toward the support of the patch exhibit.

 

Moving on… somewhere along the line, we made a decision to start including souvenir badges from Dartmoor, the birthplace of letterboxing, as part of the patch exhibit. I think the decision had something to do with a photograph I once saw of a prominent British letterboxer wearing a vest with such patches displayed alongside his coveted “100 Club” badges. This section of the exhibit continues to grow, with the latest addition being a vintage woven silk badge with an adhesive backing. We believe the badge dates back to the 1970′s or 80′s, and it is yet another instance of Dartmoor’s wild ponies being used as the quintessential symbol for the region.

 

Recently, in a less-than-serious conversation with wassamatta_u, (is there such thing as a completely serious conversation with wassa?) I mentioned the notion of displaying the infamous AQ Eye Bleach patch in the exhibit as a two-fer, with a strap included so they could be used as a blindfold (which is, of course, the recommended application for the product). To my delight, wassa not only came through with a second patch for the exhibit, he actually donated the patch that was sent for approval before any others were made. To be honest, it doesn’t really look any different (it’s the one on the left, below), but it’s still cool to have the very first one included in the exhibit. Wassa says, “I figured… what BETTER place to have the first, original, prototype EyeBleach Patch than in the Patch Display? I wasn’t really doing anything with it anyway, and the Smithsonian did not cave in to my fiscal demands for it.” The patch is marked “Prototype” on the back, and has been signed by Wassa himself, “just in case anyone questions the veracity of your claims. Or in the unlikely event anyone actually cares.” 

 

The original Blue Diamond Letterboxer patches are now sold out. These were the ones that Lock Wench had made several years ago when Atlas Quest started assigning blue diamonds icons to high-rated boxes. She had wanted to make a point that it was more important to be a good person than to have a great letterbox, which is why the patch said “letterboxER” instead of “letterbox.” Last year, she turned them over to us to sell as a fund-raiser to help support the exhibit. They’ve done well in that regard, so now it’s time to reorder. But, just to make things interesting, we’ve decided to “bling” them out a little this time around. The diamond on the new patches will be embroidered with shimmering blue and silver metallic thread. They should start shipping on or about April 15.

February Patch News

Three cheers for Shorty! At long last, there is an official state letterboxing patch for Illinois! RaqsEnigma and I have both done our fair share of finding and planting in Illinois, and are glad to see that the fifth most populous state finally merits its own patch.

 

The “Which way is North?” patch is back! Grrly Girl designed this clever patch back in 2008 to be a secret sign among letterboxers to indicate that you’re not just another “muggle” on the trail. After the first production run sold out, she offered to let us take it over and use it as a fund-raiser for the patch exhibit. We were delighted to do so and (with the designer’s blessing) chose to alter the design slightly for this next run. The new patch will be somewhat smaller, at 4 inches in height. We’re taking orders for it now on our Patches For Sale page, and will start shipping them the first week in March.

 

One other addition to the Patches For Sale page isn’t a patch at all. It’s Badge Magic®, the super-sticky adhesive that lets you mount patches on the garment of your choice without sewing! Just trace around your patch, cut out with scissors, peel & stick and you’re done! Your patches are firmly attached and machine washable, yet can be removed for re-positioning if needed.

We’re in the process of re-working the patch exhibit using this stuff, and decided to make it available to letterboxers everywhere. Before now, about the only place you could find it was in a few select scouting stores around the country.

Spring is just around the corner, so I hope we meet soon at an event near you!

Final 2010 Patch Exhibit Update

Well, I’m finally getting a chance to catch up from the holidays! Around our house the holiday season starts several weeks prior to Halloween, and keeps us pretty busy until after the New Year. Needless to say, during that time, there have been several new additions to the patch exhibit.

I’m probably most excited about receiving two more of Cherokee Rose’s historical First Finder patches from Mike (Red) and Carol (Silly Ol’ Bear) of Red’s Bunch. They have both been incredibly supportive of our effort to document letterboxing history through this project, and volunteered to send in these patches despite the fact that they obviously had a strong emotional attachment to them. It’s really shown me just how important this effort is to other folks like us who really care about the letterboxing legacy we’re passing down to the next generation. Thanks to Mike and Carol, “Moonlit Dreams” and “Go Team” will now be a permanent part of the exhibit.

 

Following somewhat in the tradition of Cherokee Rose is MrOspital from California. He has commissioned his own personalized First Finder Prize patches to include in his boxes, and sent us a sample for the exhibit. In addition to his home state, he’s been planting them in Alaska and Hawaii. We’re hoping that others will follow his lead and have their own First Finder patches made. What a wonderful, wearable reward for being the first sleuth at the scene!

 

Another awesome addition to the exhibit is the Mount Batten Trail patch sent to us from the UK by way of Mark and Sue Pepe. They had met “Noddy, the Toontown Trekker” on one of their trips to Dartmoor, and had donated the Amesbury Walkers patch they received from him to the exhibit. After Noddy went online and saw what we were up to, he realized that the Mount Batten patch also needed to be included, so he mailed it to Mark and Sue and asked them to pass it on to us.

 

Congratulations to MushrooM for her very successful new Boneyard Boxer patch, dedicated to all of us who enjoy cemetery letterboxing. Some of my favorite boxes are planted in cemeteries, and I think it’s a great way to incorporate some local history into a letterboxing adventure. I understand her first run of these patches sold out almost instantly, and she has placed another order already!

 

We also received a patch from Pine Tree for the “America Boxes” event that took place last summer in Coventry, Connecticut. Sounds like it was a really fun gathering, with night boxing and a Patriotic Pooch Parade!

 

Last, but not least, we finally got our hands on a jug of Wassa‘s famous Eye Bleach… and, we didn’t even have to pay $9999 for it! The new, highly-affordable, embroidered cloth version works great for protecting your eyes (and your imagination) from those disturbing AQ posts about hairy backs and short shorts. Just make sure to buy one to cover each eye.

Hmmm… I wonder how well this stuff works on snoopy National Park rangers?

Merit Badges and Blue Diamonds

I’m very pleased to announce that letterboxing merit badges for Finds and Plants are now available from the our Patches For Sale site. We are also selling Blue Diamond Letterboxer patches. All of these patches were originally designed by Lock Wench, who has recently been unable to keep up with ordering and shipping them due to demands of work and home. She was very happy to have the opportunity for me to buy out her stock and take over.

I realize I’ve stated my opinion elsewhere already, but I wanted to take one more opportunity to comment on the messages I’ve read criticizing the time it was taking to receive these patches from her. Like several other patch designers around the country, Lock Wench has been struggling through the years to fill orders for patches that she’s been selling for little more than what they cost to make.

I don’t think some people have stopped to think that this is basically something nice that she was doing, on a volunteer basis, in her spare time, with almost no reward whatsoever. We should all be grateful to her, and to other people like her, for the effort that goes into providing that kind of service.

I, on the other hand, have made no secret of the fact that I’m selling patches in hopes of putting aside some spare change to help fund maintenance costs for the Traveling Exhibit of Letterboxing Patches and keep it circulating to various events around the country. Many people have made contributions to this exhibit, and I have personally donated several hundred dollars of my own money toward this project. But we still need help if we’re going to keep it going.

The exhibit has already made appearances at events in six different states (Oregon, Vermont, Missouri, Illinois, Washington and Georgia). RaqsEnigma and I have  had the pleasure of visiting with many people who agree that the preservation of this aspect of letterboxing history is a worthy cause, and that this is a perfect way to support that effort.

Of course, we can’t run a successful fund-raising campaign selling things at cost. Still, we don’t want to be accused of price-gouging, either. So we have raised the price of each patch by a modest 49 cents. 100% of all proceeds from the sale of these patches will be used to support the exhibit.

We now have 20 different letterboxing patch designs available for sale. We hope that by providing a centralized place to buy several different patches, we are not only helping out the exhibit, but also providing a service to the letterboxing community. It should simplify the patch-buying process for many people, and it can certainly help reduce postage costs.