The blog will be back mid-October. See you then!
Monday, September 16, 2019
Monday, September 2, 2019
2237 South Pebble Beach Avenue
David Aber found this example of “cat-titude” and emailed it on August 5th. Although we usually don't show mailboxes that have a cover (typically vinyl) hung over the box, those covers are usually commercially made. Dave pointed out that this one looks handmade, and I agree (it's a good job!). Whether it is or not, though, I'm sure I'd get an irate message from Colette if I leave her picture off of the blog.
Have a good Labor Day! (You can be sure that Collete is.)
Monday, August 26, 2019
6317 East Calle Castor
A few weeks ago, I posted a mailbox like this one — but more stylized. Another one, with the mailbox partly surrounded by rocks, is at 2222 East Helen Street.
Monday, August 19, 2019
8315 East Calexico Street
mailboxes with big stuccoed posts because there are so many around town. But this mailbox — which is buried in an extravagantly-decorated post — has gotta be an exception to the rule.
I (couldn't miss it as I) drove by on June 21st.
I (couldn't miss it as I) drove by on June 21st.
Monday, August 12, 2019
Monday, August 5, 2019
1822 South Camino Seco
This hand-painted mailbox looked unfinished to me. A boy riding his bike told me that the box had been there since his family moved in — so I'm guessing it's as finished as it's going to be.
I wondered if his parents might come out, worried that a strange man :) was taking photos of their mailbox close to their son and his friend. So I didn't take time to snap the other side. But it's pure white, so there wasn't much to see. I rushed by on June 21st.
Monday, July 29, 2019
Monday, July 22, 2019
9233 East 29th Street
Check the closeup below — you click on it for a larger view — and you'll see that this mailbox has a manufactured cover. (Check the door hinge and the right edge where the cover meets the door.) Usually I only show mailboxes that are hand-painted, but I thought a lot of us would like this U of A design.
I spotted it on June 21st.
Monday, July 15, 2019
9330 East 27th Street
This mailbox has seen better days. It has pieces of wood on the front and back, but they're half broken and the paint has faded. Also, my photo of the front didn't come out… but I decided to publish this box anyway and let you use your imagination. It also looks like a bird may be missing from one of the roosts under the mailbox.
The Google Map in Blogger wouldn't show this address; it showed 9324 instead. So here's a Mapquest map: 9330 E. 27th St, Tucson, AZ.
I drove by on June 21st.
Monday, July 8, 2019
Monday, July 1, 2019
Monday, June 24, 2019
Monday, June 3, 2019
Monday, May 27, 2019
Monday, May 20, 2019
Monday, May 13, 2019
2933 East Florence Drive
Though lots of mailboxes are embedded in a stuccoed post, this one is different because there's a planter next to it. The bright design is eye-catching, too… I couldn't miss it!
Here's a close-up of the box itself:
I found it along the route of the Heart of Tucson Art open studio tour April 14th.
Monday, May 6, 2019
Monday, April 29, 2019
Monday, April 22, 2019
3048 North Treat Avenue
I was on the Heart of Tucson Art open studio tour April 14th when, as I turned onto Treat Avenue, I saw this box topped with two birds.
The lighting made it tough to get a photo, so I spent a couple of minutes under the tree trying various things with my cheap cell phone camera.
I've never understood why some homeowners are concerned or confused when someone (me!) takes photos of their artistic mailbox. But they came out to ask what I was doing. I told them, and I asked if they'd made the mailbox. They said it was there when they bought the home. I thanked them and left as soon as I could — with some blurry photos that I've tried to fix before I posted them here.
I think they wrote down my license plate number as I drove away.
I hope you appreciate the trouble I go through to show you great mailboxes. :) :)
I think they wrote down my license plate number as I drove away.
I hope you appreciate the trouble I go through to show you great mailboxes. :) :)
Monday, April 15, 2019
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
3302 East 24th Street
I pulled over to check my map near dusk on the evening of February 26th. Near the car was a plain-looking mailbox in a cinder-block box partly filled with dirt. The post looked special, though, as if it had a faded design painted on it:
Sure enough, the design was some kind of climbing vine. I'm guessing that the post had a vine, or the cinder-block box used to hold some kind of plants.
Clever idea, eh?
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
9319 East Anne Place
Just next door to last week's "Golfbox" (you can see it closer in the entry 9311 East Anne Place) is this wild-looking box that David Aber named "Snakebox.
Below is a closeup of the head.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
1934 South Avenita Planeta (is this a manufactured mailbox?)
David Aber finds phenomenal mailboxes. Even by his usual standard, this one (a castle on top of a dragon?!) seemed too good to be handmade (which is one of the criteria for showing a box here). I'm sure there was no hint of that commercialization; if there were, he wouldn't have sent the photo. Still, I wondered: Was this mailbox really handmade?
You may not be aware of the online search services that will find similar images. For instance, you can go to one of those services, upload a photo of the mailbox in someone's front yard, and see whether the service (for example, Google Images) finds a photo of a similar mailbox somewhere else in the world. That kind of capability is used for businesses to find you, via one of their “security” cameras, in an aisle, shopping for some item, and add to your customer profile that you’re (for example) interested in baby toys.
I decided to try searching for this amazing mailbox: Is there a photo of a similar mailbox somewhere online? If I didn't find a similar photo, that doesn't mean the mailbox wasn't mass-produced, but it cuts the chances. Because the vegetation, concrete, rocks, and house number probably won't be in other photos of the same mass-produced mailbox, I used my favorite free photo editor, GIMP, to remove all of those things from the photo Dave sent. This photo is what I sent to Google, Bing, and a couple of other image-search sites. (I used the “Intelligent Scissors” tool to remove the background and the Clone Stamp tool to replace the house number with the white areas of the sign.)
I didn't find a mailbox like this anywhere else. Even if it is mass-produced, it's pretty incredible, isn't it?
Thanks, Dave, for the fun and for the puzzle.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
7440 North Benet Drive
Driving along Silverbell on February 2nd, I ended up taking a wrong turn and winding along a road between a bland-looking subdivision and some land that was much less developed. As I was about to turn around, I spotted this mailbox. It was for a home back in the less-developed land. (The development had honeycombed stacks of plain Postal Service mailboxes.)
Next, I'll zoom in to just the south and west sides of the box. I like the eagle carrying an envelope across the mailbox end:
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