Just out of curiosity....

I was wondering if the letterboxes listed in the clue book always contained non commercial stamps or do you sometimes spend ages looking for a box from a clue and turn up a Hobby craft special?
Just wondering out of curiosity really.......

Right... this might take a bit of explaining, assuming my typing is going to be up to it...

Years ago the majority of stamps were hand carved, or commissioned stamps made by stamp makers. This was the norm for many many years.
Occasionally the odd stamp was made out of something different like copper or gunmetal, but usually it was rubber. During the late 80's and early 90's the large rubber was sold everywhere and a lot of stamps were hand carved... demand for these rubbers was high in the letterboxing fraternity and for some crazy reason they stopped making them.

In the mid nineties - along came "hobby stamping" at first it was kept to a reasonable sense of connection to the moors, and then it sort of went stupid around the turn of the century.

The hobby stamp became more and more plentiful and accessable to the public. There was an effort to try to keep the stamps "Dartmoor Orientated" but that failed, perhaps the biggest cause of these stamps is what I call "kids boxes".
Sadly, there is also a huge proliferation of poor quality stamps hitting the moor, which from a personal point of view has not done the hobby of letterboxing much good, the term Litterbox soon raised its profile.
With the letterbox thieves in action, clearing away a lot of these boxes made life a little more easy, but I for one am sat on the fence over these actions.

I would like to see these cheap stamps out for a short while and then removed after 6 months, because in my eyes they serve no useful purpose.
Take a trip around Haytor and see if you can find the same commercially available dolphin stamp 6 times in different sites... this is what spoils letterboxing.

Maybe the 100 club should tighten the rules on the quality of stamps out there... but that isn't down to me.

Bring back quality not quantity

Agree with Nik - the only way to find out what stamp is in the box is to go out and find it. You may get a clue as to whether it is a 'bought' stamp by the name of the box. Also those boxes close to the road, or around popular close to the road tors tend to be bought stamps. Go further into the moors and you will find the lovely hand carved ones or stamps that do have some connection to the moors.

Oh I'm quite surprised to be honest that commercial stamps would be 'allowed' in the clue book. Most of our small collection are commercial stamps that we have scavenged (fair enough) but I kind of thought if you people took it seriously enough to register a box they would have a decent stamp in there. Mind you as I'm having a go at stamp carving my self right now I may well change my mind........it's not the picture I mind but the writing gah...