Ben Pearson Arrows

[portugeejn]

I was at a Men's Retreat this weekend and won these in a drawing.  Unused with excellent feathers.  One Bear Razorhead is missing the bleeder, and the original cellophane wrapping is gone.

Any ideas what time period they come from?

Should I keep them as they are for display, or should I use them this fall?  I have some nice Doug Fir Surewood Shafts with Zwickey Eskimos that could be used to good effect, but the idea of shooting all vintage is interesting to me.

     

   
   

[geoarcher]

Tough call.  I picked up some vintage arrows recently - a pristine box of Bears, and a not so pristine set of BPs and a third box with mixed assortment of Hildes, Bears, and BPs.  

All broaheads.

So while you're glad you got 'em, at the same time you're torn between whether or not to use 'em, or keep them as a type of collectible.  

From a pragmatic view it makes no sense whatsoever to hoard them as an arrow is really no good if not used for its intended purpose.  On the other hand, vintage Bear and BPs are cool works of art in their own right and represent an era in traditional archery that is pretty much gone: the mass manufacturing of American brand wooden arrows with logo, and trademark broadheads that came in a niffty little box.

I still can't decide what to do myself!

[Keefer]

I got a set of Pearsons that are tapered 23/64 down to 5/16 to the knock with real turkey feathers that were dyed and never shot...I liked them so much I decided to save them and make a dozen to look just like them with imitation barred ...Sometimes they are just to purdy to shoot and other times I think who cares just shoot them cause that's what they  were made for...Tuff call but would be very cool to kill an animal with them and save the arrow to add to a pic and tropy plaque of some sort using parts of the kill of coarse ....  

[Blackhawk]

Those are very nice.

But something here is interesting to me, and that is the arrows have Bear Razorheads on them???

I know Ben had his own line of arrowheads, so the popularity of the Razorhead must have been so overwhelming that Ben could not help himself.  

From a nostalgic point of view, I would have preferred Ben's Deadheads on those arrows.

[4runr]

I thought the same thing Lon, why Bears on BPs?

[portugeejn]

My thought when I picked them up was "What are those Bear Razorheads doing there?" and "Well, someone must have put them on",  until I read the label.  

Then I thought that the demand must have been such that they were offered as an option.  Either that, or Ben Pearson had stopped production on their broadhead, but still wanted to offer complete hunting arrows.

There is more to this story than I thought!

RonP

[portugeejn]

I just noticed the label says "Ben Pearson/Consumer Division Brunswick Corporation" and gives a Pine Bluff Address.

According to the Archery Archives site    Archery Archives , Ben Pearson was sold to Brunswick in 1972 and the address was changed to Tulsa Oklahoma (another source lists October 1972 as the sale date).

Now, here is my theory.  To me this means that they were made after the sale but before the address was changed officially. They must have been manufactured somewhere around the end of 1972, as in 1973 the address had been changed to the Tulsa location.

As for the Razorheads.  In 1971 Ben Pearson died.  In 1974 the company's new owners came out with a new broadhead called the "Switchblade", so my theory is that the reason this set of hunting arrows had Razorheads is that the Pearson Deadhead wasn't being made anymore, and they hadn't come out with the Swithblade head.  Total conjecture on my part though, as I can't find an end date to Deadhead manufacture.  Either that or Brunswick decided to sell Razorheads because the demand was there.

It would be nice if I had some more old ads or pictures to refer to, but there isn't as much stuff out there on Ben Pearson.

I love this detective work!

RonP    

RonP

[Blackhawk]

Nice work Sherlock...and it seems you have a plausible theory...but there's a fly in this ointment.

About a year ago, I found a J.C. Higgins (Sears) bowhunting set in the box which included a two piece takedown longbow and a dozen arrows.  The bow and brochure in the box were marked with the Ben Pearson name and the arrows were fitted with the BP Switchblades.

The J.C. Higgins name was used for Sear's sporting goods until 1962 and changed to Ted Williams.

Here we have 1972 broadheads on arrows with a name not used since 1962.

Stuff like this can make detective work frustrating too.

[portugeejn]

What we need here is a broadhead collector to fill in with the manufacture dates of the Switchblade and the Deadhead.

Ron