Today was the first day I haven't shot a bow in a while. My wife and I decided to travel to the Hillsville Va Labor Day Flea Market. The last time we went we were nursing an abandoned kitten that was being bottle fed about every two hours. We carried him in a fannie pack around the market area. I was heavily into blacksmithing at the time. It was over a decade ago.
Fast forward to today. Now with me being really into trad archery I had my eye set on finding the gold rush of trad gear. One of the first areas where we walked a guy had an early 80s Bear wheelie bow for sale. I glanced at it with a cursory glimpse. Then I looked at the arrows in the quiver and the distinct Fred Bear razorhead shapes caught my eye. I tried to talk the guy out of the razorheads, but he wouldn't break up the package. I was polite and simply walked away. Bummed. But polite.
Now, trying to look at all this stuff and then trying to find trad gear in amongst all that stuff was harder than I thought it would be. I envisioned all the trad gear to be up on display for all to see since it is such special gear. Right? Shouldn't it be?
Well, apparently none of these folks had it right. Most of the trad gear I did find was tucked away in a corner as if being scolded and told to stand in the corner. "Shame on you for occupying my sales space!" was how I heard it in my mind as the sellers placed their items on display for the many buyers and browsers that wandered by and they cast aside the trad stuff.
I did see one very special green fiberglass Ben Pearson Jet Bow: Model 333. It and all its scratches were on sale for a mere $67.50. Obviously this bow was molded personally by Mr. Pearson himself. I carefully placed it back in its corner.
I'm not a collector of collector things. I'm a collector of shooter things. If I buy it, I want to shoot it. So let me tell you what I did find...
I passed this one seller whose small quiver of arrows caught my eye. As I walked over I got big eyed to see another Ben Pearson Jet Bow, Model 335. This one was moderately priced at $30. It was the bow lying beside it that really got me bug eyed.
Beside it was a strung wooden laminate bow. It looked like bamboo and Osage. I picked it up and it was. A four section double bamboo laminate with Osage belly. It was originally a lefty but someone had wedged a wooden shelf on the left side of the Howard Hill style grip. The right side had a very shallow cut-in shelf. The leather grip looked to be the original. The node joints of the boo were wrapped in about ten wraps of a fibrous twine. I'm guessing it was original as it looked to be strategically placed over the node joints to protect against splintering. Very clever I thought. I inspected the tips and then was very discouraged. One tip was damaged. The double layer bamboo was missing past the string groove and the strung bowstring was resting on the thin sliver of osage. As I continued to look over the bow I noticed about half way up the upper limb belly was the only writing on the bow. In nice crisp cursive writing was the name Grumley.
It was priced at $80.
When I saw the name on the bow I realized it was a Nels Grumley, a post-Fred Bear/Nels Grumley partnership bow. Then I thought, "This guy doesn't know what he has." My collector of shooter stuff kicked in and I knew I didn't want the bow. I did know that I wanted this guy to know what he had and to hopefully save this bow from the laminations separating due to his lack of knowing what he had.
I motioned for him to come over. I told him about the bow and the history of Fred Bear and Grumley. I told him he might want to unstring the bow. He took it and placed the good tip on the ground and began putting downward pressure on the good tip. I politely but hurriedly offered to show him how to unstring a bow. I suggested that he do his research on the bow and the maker's history.
Then my collector of shooter stuff kicked in again. Two of the old Bear cedar arrows in the kids quiver were tipped with 60s Bear razorheads. I really wanted those. I asked what he wanted for the two arrows. He said he didn't want to break up the set (they were a hodgepodge of old grubby crooked and broken arrows).
He wanted ten for the bunch. I offered five. He countered with eight. I put them back down. I told him a really only wanted the two broadheads for hunting. He kinda chuckled and said that if he were hunting he would go buy new broadheads. I told him, "I hunt with older style stuff. Look, I helped you out with your bow. Can you help me out with these?"
He said, "You're trying to hurt me on them." I kinda laughed too and told him I needed to catch up with my wife before she spent all my, I mean her money. He laughed and I again encouraged him to research that bow. I did ask him how much he had in it and if he wouldn't mind telling me how much since I wasn't interested in it. He said he got it for $18. I told him he stole it, said, "See ya later," and went to walking.
I got about ten feet away and he called out to me. He handed me the quiver of arrows with the two Bear razorheads. We both smiled at each other and I said, "Are you sure?" He shook his head yeah and we parted ways.
I think we both felt a little better about people in general when we left each other.
I'm going to hang on the the old arrows as a reminder of the day's events and not hunt with the razorheads.
It was a good day. I figured for my 1,000th post it would be a good story to share to continue the good day's events with the trad gang folks who have helped me alot over these last 999 posts.
Thanks TradGang.
Bud
Topic: Fred Bear, Nels Grumley, Hillsville Va, and Trad Archery (Read 221 times)
