Letterboxing Information

Hi, my girlfriend and myself decided we would like to spend more time on Dartmoor and thought letterboxing would be a good way to keep the motivation up and give us some direction for planning trips.

However, it would seem that letterboxing is a secret organisation and only people with the secret handshake are allowed in! We have searched the internet for hours and found very little in the way of information for how and where to start. The obvious is buy a notepad and ink and start scouring the moor randomly looking in cracks and crevices.

We started our day out yesterday by visiting Postbridge and went into the Post Office where we bought a couple of booklets on letterboxing- again very little information on where to start was offered and the people in the PO, although very nice, seemed to know little about letterboxing also. From here we travelled to Princetown and asked at the Moorland Information shop. They too knew minimal information and told us we needed to find 100 stamps, then join the 100club where we could buy a catalogue full of clues to find the other 21,000 that we'd read about, and recommended we start hunting with a friend who already 'boxes'. I don't know anyone like that.

But the question is how do we find the first 100 without clues or help of any kind? We managed to find 5 boxes all day, and 2 of those didn't have stamps in!! So after an enjoyable day on the moor we still left slightly frustrated

We are really keen and could do with some help. Is the elusive catalogue available to buy anywhere?

Sorry this message is so long but I thought I'd best give the whole story before someone just points us in the direction of the 100club's twice yearly meets.

Any help is much appreciated, thank you.

Dave

davejparry wrote: The obvious is buy a notepad and ink and start scouring the moor randomly looking in cracks and crevices.

This is exactly it! Finding the first 100 is always a niggly challenge - but it is easy if you go to the right places. Start off by looking through some of the old threads on here - and you will see lots of information regarding the tors which will yield you a good number of boxes. Suggested tors - Saddle Tor, Bonehill Rocks, Pew Tor, Top Tor and Pew Tor in the centre of the Moors, or try Belstone area and Row Tor in the North - as for the South Moors - can't help you there - but as you are travelling from Honiton - I guess North Moors would suit you better. Boxes tend to be sited on the lower slopes rather than high up. Just bear with it - enjoy your time on the Moors and before you know it you will have reached 100. I think I've found over 100 on just Row Tor - I started there about a year ago - and have now got over 600 boxes - it is possible!!

Hello davejparry,
Welcome to the forum and the pastime of letterboxing. As Jo points out if you search through the previous posts there is a wealth of info. You could always keep a look out for anyone acting strange on the Moors walking in circles looking in every little cave and poking in every hole. If you approach them most letterboxers are more than happy to give you advice on how and where to look and if you are lucky they might even let you tag along with them. But please be aware that some boxers like to keep themselves to themselves and I ask you to appreciate that if they are a little frosty to your advances.
I am sure you will get hooked just like everyone else on here and the Jones's wish you many happy days boxing.

Welcome to the site and to letterboxing. I can only reiterate what the above have said.

5 for your first day out is really good and if you try some of the areas such as Pew Tor and Besltone, you could find even more in one day. You will get used to the giveaway signs.

Hi Dave,

They're a friendly and knowledgeable lot here - I was made welcome despite being a non-boxing runner!

All contributions, especially from new members, enrich the forum.

Foxy

Hi davejparry, good to have you on board.

Dizzy

Good news everyone. My catalogue came through the post this morning and with your advice I think we'll be heading up to Pew tor on Sunday. Maybe we'll see a few of you up there I'll be reporting back with our success on Monday.

Thank you for making me welcome on this forum.

Dave

P.S. Do we need to have our own stamp to put in the guestbbooks of the boxes, or will just signing and dating be OK? I want to keep the ethics right and not upset the people who leave these boxes by doing the wrong thing when I find them.

Just signing your name is fine. But I expect once you see everyone's personal stamps you might be yearning for one of your own!

Hi Dave, you will find that from the catalogue there will be the occassional boxe or two that are no longer on site. This could be to do with the owner taking if back off the moors or someone sadly stealing it. Never-the-less it's best to not share the clues book with non letterboxers and when you do find them try to be discreet when there are people around.

Have fun and I'm sure you will find many a box especially if you choose the right areas to visit.

Dizzy

Thanks for the tips.

Is your Dizzy based on the prince of the yolkfolk from the mighty spectrum game? I loved those games!

Dave

Hi there - welcome to the site

Just been reading your sorry tale... dont worry the first time I was taken out letterboxing WE DIDN'T FIND ANY!!!
However I found my first box on Leather Tor - not so many there now...
But we persevered it isn't a case of having the clue book but learning how to recognise the sites. Some are blatantly obvious with worn ground and a loose pile of rocks in front of a hole to the more descretely buried ones - you will find a lot of those on Cut Hill as there are not very many rocks up there.

Obviously the further you go onto the Moor the better the stamps will be and you will no doubt come across a few Word of Mouth boxes on your travels. When you become a more established boxer and been to a few of the Meets you will offered a few WOM cluesheets (perhaps).

When I go out on the moor myself I seldom carry any clues with me - no I dont remember them either - I just like to wander around seeing what I can find
A good place for a few WOM boxes is Tiger Marsh - an aera which I dont think has been mentioned on this site

WOW 5 on your first visit we only found one on our first excursion.

Have a thought for us grockles who live hundreds of miles away from Letterbox land and can only dream about visiting the area a couple of times a year. Just booked our next trip in May can't wait.

Keep looking and be patient. but most of all enjoy the scenery, all I have to look at is a power station!!!!!

davejparry wrote:Is your Dizzy based on the prince of the yolkfolk from the mighty spectrum game? I loved those games!

Hi Dave, yep you got it, I used to play those games many years ago and have recently aquired a Cd from a fellow letterboxing friend of probably all the Dizzy games! Brings back many memories!

Dizzy

As promised here is my blog on our trip to Pew Tor yesterday.

I'm going to have to improve my map reading skills as it didnt look too far from the car park on the main road on the map! The walk over was a bit more extreme(currently very unfit due to an accident at work).

Anyhow we got there, despite the freezing cold wind trying it's best to dissuade us, and decided we would find 5 stamps before lunch. No problem we thought, the forum and the catalogue both say this place is full of stamps. I think we expected to be tripping over them, how wrong we were!

The first stamp was on the way up to the tor and turned out to be a WOM stamp called 'take a pew' 4/11. This severely whetted our appetites as it was our first 'real' box. However on the tor itself we found the boxes were mainly left by young children in massive boxes and quite poorly hidden. Some didn't have stamps and were just notebooks asking for messages to be left. Other children on the moor were finding these boxes and not putting them back properly, or in completely different places. Is this where the notion of letterbox thieves comes from? And are these considered to be true letterboxes/likely to be registered?

After lunch we headed SW from the tor amongst smaller groups of rocks and this is where we found the majority of our stamps, well hidden and recognised from the catalogue. These gave us great satisfaction to find, even though we took Nik's advice and didn't actually use the catalogue clues to find them.

On the way back to the car park we came across 3 young girls who were snapping a branch off a tree with no parents in sight. Perhaps I'm just getting grumpy in my old age (28!) but that really annoyed me. However that's another story.

We found 15 stamps in total, 3 which we can tick off against the catalogue and a few more I recognise from users on here We had another terrific day and have started planning next weeks trip to Belstone. Does anyone have any further tips that may help us in our quest? Where is the best place to park- the parking site on the OS seems a fair way from where we wanna be. I'm trying to save the longer walks for the summer

Oh yeah, nearly forgot. We found a stamped addressed postcard in one of the boxes. Am I right in thinking we were meant to take it, write a message and post it back to the box owner?

We got a stamp too, only shop bought I'm afraid, but it's a sheep which is on the dartmoor theme. Look out for it, it'll be everywhere soon enough

Hi Dave,

Check out this thread - posted a while ago - gives good details about where to park in Belstone.

viewtopic.php?t=922&start=0&postdays=0& ... highlight=

As for whether you count all the various boxes you found on Pew Tor - it is very much up to you. Some people on here do, some people don't. It's personal preference.

I love boxing around Belstone - I'm sure you will like the area too.

Excellent, thanks for the advice. We'll have to get up early and beat the rush

davejparry wrote:Oh yeah, nearly forgot. We found a stamped addressed postcard in one of the boxes. Am I right in thinking we were meant to take it, write a message and post it back to the box owner?

Yes, some people put stamped addressed postcards for you to return. Then they know their box is safe.

Pleased you were able to collect a few stamps on Pew Tor. Well done and welcome to the "bug" of letterboxing. Very contagious.