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.

1601 South Camino Seco

This isn't the only mailbox in the neighborhood with what looks like a planter on the opposite side of its post:

I was there June 21st.

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.

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.

1812 South Rocky Mountain Drive

Except for the rocks it's mounted on, this set of handlebars with a mailbox looked ready to roll when I drove by on June 21st.

9301 East 29th Street

Just in time for the 4th of July… this mailbox is about the most red, white, and blue you can get.

I stopped by and saluted on June 21st.

3223 East 25th Street

It looks like some kid(s) had fun painting this mailbox…

I found it on December 29, 2018.

Maiboxes in Melbourne

Tucson artist K. Loren Dawn enjoys trips to the tropics. She also has an eye for mailboxes — and sends ones she spots along the way. Here are two. The hidden camera data says that the first is from May 1st and the second from May 4th. Thanks, Loren!

2710 North Palo Verde Avenue

Here's a mailbox with an intricate design on one side…

…and a simpler one on the other:

I took the photos April 14th.

3429 East Glenn Street

No, I have no idea why someone would put a big rock underneath their mailbox. (But Glenn Street in midtown has more than its share of, er, creative mailboxes.)

I rolled by — then pulled over right away — on April 14th.

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.

2815 East La Cienega Place

OK, I've already used the title “This Mailbox Rocks” on another box. Hmmm…

Anyway, the post looks like sandstone — maybe over concrete? I saw it April 14th.

2702 East La Cienega Drive

Dots in swirls on this bright box:

If found it on April 14th.

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. :) :)

Bubbling Box in Oracle

Along the route of the Oracle Artist Studio Tour on April 6th, I came across this mailbox outside Michael Carroll's place.

What can I say? I had to go in to visit his studio. :)

P.S. I've changed the posting date from Tuesdays to Mondays — so you can start your week with a new box.

3236 East 24th Street

This simple box has butterfly decals on a red background. I spotted it in February and noticed that one side had only one decal. I came back on April 5th to see if it had changed… it hadn't:

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?

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.

9311 East Anne Place

For obvious reasons, David Aber named this "Golfbox". It has been modified to resemble a golf bag and clubs. He sent it on February 27th.

I've zoomed in for more detail:

(There's another unique mailbox next door. It'll be online next week.) Much appreciated, Dave.

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.

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:

319 West Pennsylvania Drive

David Aber calls this mailbox “Pony Express” after the long-ago service that delivered mail and etc.

He emailed the photo September 25, 2018, after a nice talk with the homeowner. The mailbox was made by the previous homeowner while he recovered from a stroke!

Next, a closer view:

Bucking Betty coming soon to a home near you?

I found Bucking Betty out in the desert earlier this month. There was no sight of her owner. The steel sculpture artist Pat Frederick might know something about where she is by the time you see this. Pat hopes Betty can find a new home…

(Pat is one of my favorite Tucson sculptors. I was short of mailbox photos to post online, so I asked if I could show the photo here. Maybe you'll see Betty along Pima County roads sometime soon?)

2525 East Helen Street

David Aber found another in his series of “Butterflyboxes” September 17, 2018.

Let's look a bit closer: