Help with possible Bear recurve ID?

[Chris Wilson]

Over on the ***********, a fella is asking about a possible bear bow that was his fathers.  He's thinking maybe a kodiak of some vintage, but I'm not sure.  From the picture, I can't place it.  Can anyone give him some ideas.

  ***********/ID this Bear?

[Precurve]

Without the extra wood sections on the front of the bow it looks exactly like a 1959 Kodiak Special.  Not familiar with anything Bear ever made that looked like this.  If it has the Bear Silkscreens maybe it was a prototype.

[Chris Wilson]

Unfortunately, his father refinished it sometime in the past and removed all the markings and decals on the bow.  It's also missing it's coin.  I haven't seen a Bear bow that looks like that either.

[bjk]

I'm with Dave...has all the features of a KS...minus the extra wood...the extra wood really throws a wrench into it...good looking bow, regardless.

[PAPALAPIN]

CHRIS

Back in the '50's there were no Tamerlanes or any of the other tournament or target bows that Besr was known for.  The Kodik Special was probably the top of the line  Bear target bow at that time.  You see many of them in target weights, more so than Kodiaks.  

With this in mind I am certain that the bow pictured is a '59 or '60 Kodiak Special that someone modified to add mass and stability.  As a testiment to that forward thinking person, look at what Bear did in '63 with the Tamerlane.  They made it longer with a more massive riser.  It developed into one of the most popular tournament bows ever.  If the guys dad did it, he was way ahead of his time.

On the other hand, Bear did put out a few prototyps as experamental bows that never really went into production.