Someone’s letterbox hobby went too far

ridiculously intricate letterboxPictured is a letterbox down the road from where I live. You can tell it’s a letterbox by the handle, lock and nameplate at the bottom right side of the box/house. To get an idea of the size of the letterbox, there’s a red tulip behind the letterbox, or if you’re more of a measurement person, that door for the letters to go in is around 25cm wide and tall. If you’d like to see a bigger version, click on the image.

At the top we have the Savoyarde coat of arms: this is visible in loads of places in Haute Savoie where the locals are proud of their past, when they were once a separate entity from France with their own duchy. There’s then a bit of a mish-mash of people — women and men in traditional dress selling bread and wheat and other goodies, but down the bottom, there seems to be a mountaineer or musician (or someone dressed in more recent clothes anyway) at the top of the staircase, and more bizarre still is the nativity-looking woman next to the letterbox door who is holding a lamb, with a lamb looking up at her. Regardless, ten out of ten to the creator for getting most things to scale (apart from that huge lantern under the Savoyarde coat of arms), and the inclusion of a cat, some ducklings, some decorative clogs, pretzel and belier (local goat-like sheep thing) all hanging on the walls, mini flowers, logs and wheat, and the tiny love hearts cut out of the wood. I think there’s even a squirrel and a snowman’s head included, amongst a few other tiny objects. I just wish they’d included a miniature letterbox with the house, in the style of the house, with its own miniature letterbox in the same style, and so on until there’s just a tiny dot somewhere on the other side of the road…

About

I'm a technical author, journalist and writer from Australia who has been living in Europe since 2000 and exploring the world from there. My passions are writing, snow sports and travel.

5 Comments on “Someone’s letterbox hobby went too far

  1. Just love it – reminds me of the old Vache qui Rit packaging where the cow wore an earring with the same picture as the box lid & on & on & on.

    Sally (Tom’s Mum.)

  2. This is great! I love the big personality put into something very ordinary. The mail carrier must smile each day when making his rounds.

  3. Hello Tom’s mum! I’m going to have to look more closely at La Vache qui Rit next time – thanks for the tip.

    So Chris contacted me with a photo of the same letterbox, but with something different. He said: “We know this letterbox well and the owner changes the people during the seasons. This was taken march 2010. We originally thought the guy down the bottom was Elvis.” Indeed, in his photo, it does look like an Elvis!