My biggest question is how many letterboxing mavens were in on this? Did they help the "bidding" or were they duped just as well? The bidding roster looked like a veritable "who's who" of letterboxers....

LW

My theory? They were all in on it.

I wondered if bidding would allow me to get some exclusive clues or something like that but I figured if I tried it, I would end up owning a $300 stamp.

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And who cares if this person portrayed themselves as rude

Rude?! Heck, the minute I read the first Q and A I was rolling on the floor laughing. It felt like I was in the middle of a Monty Python episode. It was wonderful to see yet another chapter of the KMartha saga unfold so many years since its first appearance. I am amazed at the number of people who didn't see the humor (or the date.)

When I was a kid, my sister and I used to play a game we invented called "Crabby Operator." One of us, the telephone operator, would put our head inside a buttoned up cardigan and the other would talk into the sleeve/telephone. The operator's job was to be really, really crabby to the poor caller. This K-martha prank took me right back to the kid-joy I felt when I was playing that game.

I only wish I knew how this would've all played out. Sigh... Funhog

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I only wish I knew how this would've all played out. Sigh..

My sentiments exactly, Funhog. I was hoping for a bonus clues or something. Some of us who have been around here for a few years have come to expect the annual April Fool's joke. When I saw the KMartha auction was offered by Chanticleer Gallery I immediately made a connection with the 2003 hoax by Madeline Gere of the same "gallery". There's still record of it on the letterboxing-usa board, msg 23761, for those who missed it. I think it's brilliant (but maybe I'm in the minority).

Oh well, there's always next year!

Donna

Night Owl and I stayed up last night reading through the last day of drama in the K-MartHa saga. We were howling. Art, drama, realization, fear, secret knowledge, exciting characters, never knowing who was serious, or who was just adding to the saga, strong reactions, calling out the dogs, cavalry to the rescue. Oops. It's Dudley Doright. We were shaking with the hilarity of it all.

Does anyone remember who the high bid was and how much?

As one of only two people to fall for a previous 4/1 ruse I . . . well . . . never mind.

Scarab of the Doubtful Quests

<<Perhaps the KMartha Auction is not unlike letterboxing itself. Neither all auctions nor all letterboxes are right for all people. If either a letterbox or an auction is not right for you, then simply pass it by and don't ruin it for others.

On a lighter note, as others have posted,I had some truly wonderful laughs reading the Q&A's on the auction and enjoyed this year's Avril Uno sideshow...if that was what it was...while it lasted. Thanks Chanticleer.

Alafair>>

Exactly what I was thinking. I thoroughly enjoyed it and enjoyed asking some of the questions that received, what I thought, were hilarious answers. Thanks Chanticleer. I was honored that you still think of us so fondly.

A agree with Scarab that it was fun to watch the ruse unfold.

Oh the drama,

LB

<<Perhaps the KMartha Auction is not unlike letterboxing itself. Neither all auctions nor all letterboxes are right for all people. If either a letterbox or an auction is not right for you, then simply pass it by and don't ruin it for others.

Please excuse my inexperience, but what was so funny about the KMArtha thing? I still don't get it. Besides that, April Fool's Day is one day 4/1 and does not begin the week before the appointed day. Also, why be so offended that people get upset when it was put forth that the stamp was stolen...........and only a few weeks before there was a HH stamp rescue and that was wonderful!!!!

So where does the KMartha stamp belong....really?
Zoe

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Please excuse my inexperience, but what was so funny about the KMArtha thing?

To fully appreciate it, you actually need experience - in the arcane world of the Yahoo LBNA chatlist. Read the list around each of the April 1sts going back to at least 2002. That will explain most of it.

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Besides that, April Fool's Day is one day 4/1 and does not begin the week before the appointed day.

This isn't the only example of someone playing a little loosely with the calendar for an April Fool's joke. The company I work for actually put a April's Fools joke via an internal webcast to all the employees announcing a merger with another company on March 30th this year. It fooled a lot of folks but I think everyone found it pretty funny and noone complained that it was done two days early.

I have a close personal friend at K-Mart who says that Martha Stewart, after being alerted by her attorneys about the eBay auction, herself called the woman who founded eBay. She offered her a set of hand stenciled matching towels and a tea cozy if she would put a stop to the sale. Then they had a nice chat.

Scarab of the Doubtful Quests

Are you calling Pierre a woman, Scarab? Them's fightin' words. hahaha

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Then they had a nice chat.

And the joke goes on... It's like the Energizer bunny or a Timex watch.

Knit Wit

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My biggest question is how many letterboxing mavens were in on this? Did they help the "bidding" or were they duped just as well? The bidding roster looked like a veritable "who's who" of letterboxers....

I bid on it, but have no idea about who was behind it (beyond the list of usual suspects). I heard about it from the Great Lakes group, and figured that, win or lose, it was still worth it to play along!

SD

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Was anyone ultimately duped? Sadly, we'll never know thanks to the person who jumped without a moment's hesitation into a self-serving rescue fantasy and ended the fun for many....and then, after a certain amount of maligning by others for having done this, posted a backhanded, insincere apology to this list further adding insult to injury. I just don't get why someone would act with such mean-spiritedness....twice. How sad.

Now let's talk about nasty posts. Someone made an error. They apologized for it, sincerely. The maligning that has been done since then has been compeltely uncalled for. Many people did NOT know this was a joke. One person finally stood up and was willing to DO something to stop what they, and many, saw as an injustice to the letterboxing community.

What *I* see as a MUCH bigger injustice is the public slamming that has been going on here towards this person. For goodness sakes people, mistakes happen. And you know what, Ebay probably wouldn't be real amused knowing that their service was being used for an April Fools Joke.

Get over it. Get off Bindle Babe's back and go boxing.

Maiden

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Now let's talk about nasty posts. Someone made an error. They apologized for it, sincerely. The maligning that has been done since then has been compeltely uncalled for. Many people did NOT know this was a joke. One person finally stood up and was willing to DO something to stop what they, and many, saw as an injustice to the letterboxing community.

What *I* see as a MUCH bigger injustice is the public slamming that has been going on here towards this person. For goodness sakes people, mistakes happen. And you know what, Ebay probably wouldn't be real amused knowing that their service was being used for an April Fools Joke.

Get over it. Get off Bindle Babe's back and go boxing.

I would have to agree. You can't blame someone for taking an April Fool's joke seriously (after all, that's what you wanted, right?) and trying to stop what as Maiden put it, "what they, and many, saw as an injustic to the letterboxing community." I would have to say to the eBay community as well, as that would not exactly be a prime example of an ideal auction.

I admit, that as an April Fools joke, the questions (or rather, the answers mostly, but hte questions as well) could be humorous.
However, at first, and until I realized it was in fact a joke, I did not see them as humorous at all, but instead as very horrid answers.

I'm with Maiden on this- Bindle Babe apologized. Someone may take that as 'insincere', but that is up to interpretation.
How would you feel if you apologized for something like this, and were only blasted further for something you felt bad about in the first place?

Let's have some peace.
April 1st has come and gone, and the joking should now be over. But that doesn't mean we should take up insulting, name-calling, and other such ridiculous things to fill that void.

Celtic Quinn (who's been 'duped' on more than one occasion)

I bid on it, too, having zero knowledge about it except that I knew the history behind K-Martha and that I thought the seller's answers to questions were so far off the deep end that it HAD to be a joke. The fact that April was rapidly approached just cemented the notion as a prank. C'mon? Would a legitimate art gallery with an iota of business sense actually answer questions like that?

daelphinus

I agree with you, Maiden. Get over it and go on!

The point of the auction was obviously to raise hackles (instead of being "funny" as someone else asked) to see who would "fall" for it. So now some people are sore, because it actually succeeded in ticking people off!!! What nerve! Get off your grammatically correct, punctuated high horse.

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The point of the auction was obviously to raise hackles (instead of being "funny" as someone else asked) to see who would "fall" for it.

Sigh. It may be obvious that it was meant to see who would fall for it but it is not obvious that it was meant to raise hackles. What is not so readily apparent is that it was meant (I believe) to be entertaining and a gift to some of the oldtimers who've lived through several years of letterboxing pranks. These oldtimers are the ones who found it funny and were a little upset to see it come to a premature conclusion.

as the old tootsie pop commercial says.... "the world will never know..."

Alright. I have chosen to sit back and keep my opinions to myself. I just can't do it anymore.

I did not know this was a joke. I have been a letterboxer for over 3 years. I was honestly appalled at this auction thing. I was happy to see it shut down. Go ahead and be as mad with me as you want about saying that.

Why did I not know it was a joke? Someone who has been around as long as I should, correct? Well, wrong. A long while ago I used to be a member of the LBNA talk list. I am now VERY proud to say I am not. That's right, you read it right. I left that list because many folks, wonderful folks, and myself included were constantly belittled, made fun of, and were treated horribly on a regular basis, usually some people didn't agree with the opinions of the so-called letterboxing greats or cliques. It was worse than being in high school all over again.

Maybe some of that has stopped now. I don't know but I doubt it. This talk list, the LBNA talk list, has been the cause of alot of people to stop boxing altogether. I almost quit completely as well. I would be ashamed to tell people to read the archived messages for that list, lest they think all letterboxers are as barbaric as others.

I am happy to have found a home here on Atlas Quest. Since the day I signed on here, I have to say this has been a wonderful community of people. No flame throwing here. Period.

For those of you who chose to continue to put others down because they lack the knowledge that you have regarding, well, anything, please go somewhere else to throw flames. It simply is not necessary and just further shows what kind of person you truely are. If you can't say anything nice, just keep it to yourself. Think of the impression you are giving to new boxers to the community.

I am sure that was more than my 2 cents and more than most of you wanted to know. Do not send me hate mail, just hate me from a distance. Really, I am ok with that.

Liz
of Penguin Patrol

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It's likely that letterboxing veterans either took the time to read the LbNA talk-list history from previous years circa the last days of March to the first days of April. or had been around long enough to know KMartha's storied past. It would take the curious a few minutes or so to find and read these posts. Those veteran letterboxer bidders might also have noted the concise synopsis of the KMartha stamp in this website's Glossary.

I'm sorry, what catagory in the Glossary includes the KMartha stamp's history? I have looked and don't see any mention of it.

Now that this is all over, as a relative newcomer and not a big computer user I would love some guidance as to where to look for stories about "legendary" stamps and boxers.

This is a growing hobby. Many of us have been letterboxing for less than a year and don't know all there is to know. Lots of folks letterbox just fine only using the websites to record their finds and post their clues. Also, some of the information one could seek out (like any sort of profile on the carver of this stamp, or clues to any of his/her boxes) is secret and meant to be figured out from available clues. Please don't come down so hard on an honest mistake from someone who cared about another boxer's work being stolen and sold at a huge profit.

I for one am glad that the weather is finally turning and I can fullfill my boxing urge by going outside, planting, and and finding instead of staying inside typing on the computer!

And I'm adding another big hug for Bindle Babe!

knitica

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It's likely that letterboxing veterans either took the time to read the LbNA talk-list history from previous years circa the last days of March to the first days of April. or had been around long enough to know KMartha's storied past. It would take the curious a few minutes or so to find and read these posts. Those veteran letterboxer bidders might also have noted the concise synopsis of the KMartha stamp in this website's Glossary.

Sorry, can't find anything in the glossary. Wow, I feel so.....snubbed. I started letterboxing in 2002, but I guess I'm not a veteran, because I don't read old archived talk lists to know that this was a joke.

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Was anyone ultimately duped? Sadly, we'll never know thanks to the person who jumped without a moment's hesitation into a self-serving rescue fantasy and ended the fun for many....and then, after a certain amount of maligning by others for having done this, posted a backhanded, insincere apology to this list further adding insult to injury. I just don't get why someone would act with such mean-spiritedness....twice. How sad.

Not nice at all. How do we even know E-bay took the item off because of Bindle's post? How do we know that the person who had the item listed didn't pull it themselves? We don't know either way, unless the person who liste the E-bay item speaks up.

A great place to start is Mark & Sue's pages....

specifically the interview pages where they interview significant contributors to letterboxing: http://interviewseries.blogspot.com/

or their dartmoor history page http://dartmoorhistory.blogspot.com/

or Silent Doug's website www.letterboxing.info
his LB history page: http://www.letterboxing.info/articles/00000019.php

Eureka! Thank you!

knitica

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A great place to start is Mark & Sue's pages....

Thank you! I started with the code of conduct and "about letterboxing" and that sort of thing, it looks like this is the next step! I had started to look around the various things in Mark and Sue's sidebar, like the first letterbox in each state, which was fascinating. I'll have to keep delving into their links I guess.

Thanks for taking the time to answer questions from us newer folks!

knitica

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For those of you who chose to continue to put others down because they lack the knowledge that you have regarding, well, anything, please go somewhere else to throw flames. It simply is not necessary and just further shows what kind of person you truely are. If you can't say anything nice, just keep it to yourself. Think of the impression you are giving to new boxers to the community.

I agree here because I have been on the receiving end of some pretty nasty ridicule before on message boards about other hobbies etc. It is not fun and it completely makes the entire community of that hobby look bad or you can say it leaves a bad taste. I was nearly "flamed" here at AQ one time but it fizzled out pretty well and didn't call names but that old incident is one reason i think I know at least one of the kmartha pranksters. ;-)

anyway...I truly hope this list doesn't start that crap...I will be HISTORY. I will be reluctant to leave because AQ is Da Bomb...but if I wanted to be ridiculed or hear the b@*ching and moaning...I would still be with my sorry old Ex-husband that liked to pick a fight.

i think we know the person listing the item didn't pull it cause they are complaining or disappointed that they didn't get to see it through.

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I'm sorry, what catagory in the Glossary includes the KMartha stamp's history? I have looked and don't see any mention of it.

There are several entries in the AQ glossary that actually don't show up in the glossary index, and Martha Stewart is one of them. Most of those terms that don't show up in the glossary index tend to be inside jokes among the 'old timers', though I am rather surprised that slackboxing has started to make it's way into a legitimate word since it really started off as another inside joke. There are also hidden entries for peeps, dead kittens (look under K), dead gerbils (look under G), and dead lemurs (look under L). Oh, and G for gulliable. ;o)

Might be a few others, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

As for all the people whacking Bindle Babe across the head for 'ruining' the joke, I'd prefer that to stop. She fell for the joke hook, line, and sinker. Jokes are meant to fool people, and it worked. Yes, I'd have liked to see the grand finale for the joke as well, but I can't complain too much because she fell for it. Please keep your venom for the big LbNA list. ;o) (That's an inside joke too--I'd rather you not really take your venom there!)

Moderators have the authority to delete any additional posts smacking Bindle Babe on the back of the head. *nodding*

Happy trails.

-- Ryan

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Most of those terms that don't show up in the glossary index tend to be inside jokes among the 'old timers', though I am rather surprised that slackboxing has started to make it's way into a legitimate word since it really started off as another inside joke. There are also hidden entries for peeps, dead kittens (look under K), dead gerbils (look under G), and dead lemurs (look under L). Oh, and G for gulliable. ;o)

One of these days, Ryan....one of these days!
:D

-CQ