Compared to the ubiquitous diaphragm, a call with all the charm of the retainer you wore in junior high school, the squeaky, bulky wooden box call appears to be no more than a quaint relic--a throwback to an earlier time when calls were fashioned in the hills and hollows by local craftsmen from wing bones, snuff cans, bits of slate and wood.

Smart turkey hunters know that when it comes time to reach out and touch a turkey long distance, the box has no equal.

"I like to locate with a box call, turn it upside down and hammer on it loud to fire up birds," says Eddie Salter of Eddie Salter Game Calls. "I called in my first turkey with a home-made diaphragm when I was 10 years old and I've won two world calling championships [with a mouth call], but in heavily hunted woods I think the box call gives me the best chance to kill a tom. Take 10 average callers and put them in the woods with mouth calls, I can pick all 10 of them out as fakes, but a box call at 60 to 80 steps sounds just like a turkey."

How Boxes Work

What makes a box call sound like a turkey? The friction of the lid scraping across the rails (sides) of the box, same as fingernails on a blackboard or branches rubbing together in a high wind.

A good call, of course, refines this concept considerably. Says Allen Jenkins, President of Lynch Calls: "The sound of a box call depends on the relationship of three radiuses: the bottom of the lid, the curve of the sides, and the rails of the box, which are not flat but form a third radius. The size and thickness of the box is critical to forming a good sound chamber. The chalk adds resistance, like resin on a bow. You can play a box call like a musical instrument by moving your thumb along the side of the box to change the tone."

If a box call is a musical instrument, the Lynch World Champion is a Stradivarius. Jenkins cites the use of Honduran mahogany as one reason: "We've built calls out of every known American wood and around a hundred south American woods," he says, "and we find Honduran mahogany to be the most stable and consistent. A walnut lid can give you a great sound, but there are so many knots and so much grain that only 40 percent of a thousand board feet may be usable."

While mahogany works best for Lynch, other makers get good results from walnut, poplar, cedar, maple, and combinations, each with their own slightly different sound qualities.

History

Henry Gibson of Arkansas patented the first box call in 1897. It's not surprising, according to Howard Harlan, author of Turkey Calls: an Enduring Folk Art, that the first commercially marketed box call came from the area around Memphis.

"That region was the call-making mecca of the world," says Harlan, "The concentrations of game there attracted sportsmen from all over the U.S. and guides and call makers thrived."

"While there were certainly boxes being made before Gibson's call, his was the first patent and the first to be advertised and sold through outdoor magazines." Gibson's original patent did not specify materials or dimensions, and he experimented constantly throughout his career.

Call maker Tom Turpin of Memphis picked up on one variation of Gibson's design around the turn of the century. Typically, the boxes of Turpin's calls were made from a single block of wood hollowed out with a drill. When turkey populations failed, Turpin (and many other makers) switched to making duck calls. Turpin's call was eventually continued by Pennsylvanian Roger Latham, a pioneer in turkey research and owner of Penn's Woods calls. Penn's Woods sells the same box today.

Few turkey calls were made anywhere during the 1930s and 40s, since there were only scattered pockets of turkeys remaining in the United States. In the 1930s, however, a former pharmacist and furniture maker from Birmingham, Alabama named M.L. Lynch began building 300 or 400 Gibson-style calls at a time and selling them out of the trunk of his car anywhere there were turkeys (whether there was an open season in the area or not).

He tinkered with the design constantly, finally settling on a box made of several pieces of wood glued together, declaring his call finished in 1958. That date has been stamped on the side of all Lynch World Champions made since. According to Harlan, Lynch "delivered the box call into its second great age": the present. Beginning in the 1970s, trap and transfer programs spread turkeys quickly across the country, and today there may be more call makers than ever before. All of them owe a debt to the man who perfected the box back in the days when there were very few turkeys to call.

Collectibility

Box calls are an up and coming sporting collectible. Collector Earl Mickel divides calls into three basic categories: historic calls, like original Gibsons and old M.L. Lynches; limited edition calls from modern makers; and handmade custom calls.

Affordable examples of all three types can be had for a few hundred dollars or less and they are bound to appreciate. To name a few names, a Lynch call from 1950-51, recognizable by the turkeys and pine trees on the side, is worth $400-500. Limited edition calls from Quaker Boy which sold for $200 new are now worth three times that amount. Recently a custom call by Neil Cost brought $1,000.

Whether any box call ever fetches the $16,000 paid for a Glodo duck call remains to be seen, but in the woods where they've been fooling turkeys for over a hundred years, box calls will always be worth their weight in gold.