Need info on a bear black panther hunter.

[huntnmaster]

I have a Bear black panther hunter which is confuzzling me. It has the flat bear coin but has a K serial #.
The K serial # suggest it was a 70's bow but the flat bear coin suggest 59 or 60. The coin also looks to be nickle which suggest 1959. Any info on this bow would be great.
                                 Thank You.

[PAPALAPIN]

HUNTMASTER

I don't pretend to be an expert, but I will give it my best shot.  The Black Panther is a 1970's vintage bow, hence the "K" in the serial number.  Bear did not start using the raised coin until about 1974 (I think).  The panther was not one of their higher line bows.  The better bows got the brass coins.  The lesser models got an aluminum, or silver colored coin. Although I say the Panther was not one of their better bows, by no means am I saying it is not a good, or decent bow. Just that it was not one of their premium models.  I personally feel that the Bear line of recurves took a nose dive in the '70's.  Probably because they were jumping on the Compound bandwagon, and put more impahsis there.  That was about the time that they discontinued the bear takedown with clamps and came out with the line of MAG risers with slide in limbs.  I keep in mind that they were playing to the market and more people were getting interested in those new fangled contraptions with all the wheels and pullys.  I am sure they were doing everything to keep their market share, but I think their heyday of the recurves was the '60's.  Just my opinion

[kytba.com]

I HEARD THAT THEY WERE SOLD THROUGH K-MART.

[George D. Stout]

The Black Panther Hunter was made for K-Mart Stores during the 70's.  These bows were made on the same form as the Kodiak Magnum but were not overlayed with fiberglas on the riser. They used plain Bear Futurewood for the riser in gray/black color.   GDS

[OSO]

I've got one from the 70's -- it does not have the metalic emblem of any kind.

I've noticed over the yrs. that the "Black Panther" is not seen very often --- they did'nt make a bunch of them.

Good luck.
OSO

[spikebuck]

bear black panther hunter bows were made for a chain of stores, but in atleast two different riser styles and 52" which i do own are marked 45/50 50/55 and so on riser however is not the same as k-mag. has a different cut on top of riser. as far as flush coin,(you probably have a semi target style riser)i think 54 or 56"