Hi all.
Been a long time since I've been on here and I need some help.
The widow of my best friend and archery mentor Bob Grauberger recently asked me to help her sell a couple of his bows. I bought his main hunting bow which is an old Wilson brothers Black Widow and it's something I'll never sell. One of the others though is a Fred Bear Kodiak Special. I want to say he told me it was from 1964 but honestly can't remember for sure. This bow belonged to Bobs dad who was a very avid archer himself. I actually hunted with this bow one year just because Bob thought I'd like it due to my long draw. At the tone I was pulling an honest 31 inches. It's a 64" long, 62 pound bow and yes, it was smooth all the way to my draw.
The story Bob told me about this bow is that his Dad had bought a new Bear Kodiak and hunted with it and I believe also shot a fair bit of tournaments. Something happened though and the bow failed. He contacted Bear archery about it and they ended up replacing it with the fancier Kodiak Special. It's a beautiful bow and I love the curved accent line in the grip/riser. Also love the white and black riser and tip overlays. Just looks classy to me. Shoots a heavy arrow well and hard.
Condition wise, its awfully good. Just a few very tiny dings in the left side. I tried to take pictures of them but may not be able to show them here as I'm having trouble with photobucket not letting me upload normally. I can load one or two, then I can't do any. Try later and I get one or two then more "upload failed". I'll post the couple I do have below.
Oh, it's also missing the medallion. I'm pretty sure it was there ten or twelve years ago when I hunted with it but it must have fallen out since then.
What I'd like to know is this:
Year of manufacture.
Correct medallion color.
Source for replacement medallions
Approximatel value.
The little searching I did was not a lot of help so I didn't find but a couple Kodiak specials and most of those were fairy low draw weight. It's been my experience that a nice solid hunting weight usually ads value to older bows since so many are rated down in the 30's and 40's
This is probably the biggest mark on the bow I can find. I'm sure it could be steamed out. I have another pic showing another area.
I also took pics of the tip overlays, limb logo, looking down the limbs etc. Will try to add more later.
Any help is appreciated.
I thought years ago when Bobs wife mentioned possibly selling some of his things I would buy this bow myself because it was understood that the family would never part with his Widow which was his real personal hunting bow. The Kodiak was the only bow of Bobs I thought I'd be able to get. Things changed though and his daughters recently decided that since none of them could handle the weight of Bobs bows they wood be OK with their Mom selling them. They seem to be happy I bought the widow because they know how much it means to me. I'd buy the Bear also if I had the extra money but at the moment I need tires on a car and an SUV plus our water heater is starting to leak. Kathy asked me to try to sell two bows for her since she knows nothing about them. In all honesty, I'm not as into them as I used to be (shoulders going bad) so I have not stayed current on values thus the need for some help. I'd like to treat her as fair as possible and get as much for her as I can. Pretty sure she needs it if you know what I mean. When I do all them, she'll get 100% of the money.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Topic: Help date & value Bear recurve (Read 611 times)
