All Aluminum recurve

[melsdad]

I just bought an all aluminum recurve at a flea market. There are no markings on the bow at all. I am guessing it is in the range of 30#-40# draw. The riser is also aluminum with a black wrinkle paint finish. There is a shelf on either side of the riser for a left, or right handed shooter.

Along with the bow, came a box (dozen) of aluminum arrows that look like they were never shot. The arrows are fletched with feathers, and are nicely crested in white, and red. The remainder of the shaft is bare aluminum. The box says "Stemmler Archery" Long Island New York.

Anyone have any information on this bow, as to who made it...etc. Internet searches haven't produced much.

Thanks
Brian

[melsdad]

I gotta get some pictures posted of this bow. It must be more rare than I thought.

[squirrellluck]

My memory isn't real sharp and they were before my time but there were a couple outfits made some alum. bows. One being stemmler Bear even laminated some alum. between wood on some of their bows. Don't know about value but you see them sometimes on ebay.

[All Hawks Kill]

I gotta get some pictures posted of this bow. It must be more rare than I thought.

They are pretty rare because none of the aluminum limbed bows really made it.  There were issues with the aluminum being affected too much by heat and cold if my memory serves me correctly.  Like squirrellluck says there were a few different companys try it and none of them made it with the aluminum limbs.  What a bow like that is worth, your guess is as good as mine.  It might be worth a pretty penny to a hard core collector but to the average guy it wouldn't likely be worth much at all.  Good luck finding more information about the bow.

[Cottonwood]

I have tried to find a picture on the internet some where, you have figured that in http://www.archeryhistory.com/recurves/recurvesmain.php it could be found.

[Graybeard]

Never seen one made of aluminum but I still have my solid fiberglass bow I bought for myself on my 12th birthday. I rode the bus to town and it took all my money to buy the bow and a half dozen arrows so I had to walk home a distance of perhaps 3-4 miles.

It hasn't been shot in close to 20 years maybe more and might never be shot again but I'll hold onto it. Mine is a Pearson.

[Winter Hawk]

Boy Graybeard,

you do bring up old memories!  On my 16th birthday my folks presented me with an archery set from Sears.  It had the 45 lb. Ben Pearson fiberglass bow, three target arrows, three broadhead arrows, an  arm guard, a finger tab, and an instruction book.  They also gave me a grass mat target which had a wood tripod stand.  That was 50 years ago now....  I had the bow for many years, don't know what happened to it.

-WH-

[Cottonwood]

1968 is when I started shooting a Ben Pearson fiberglass bow 

[Graybeard]

It was March of '57 when I walked back from town with my new bow. The arrows and tab used in those long ago years are long gone and it has had several replacement strings but the old bow is still here. Mine is a 35 pound pull bow.

Prior to that all my bows I had made myself from privet hedge. It actually made a pretty darn good self bow. They weren't fancy but they shot my home made arrows fairly well. I used weed stems that grew straight and strong and folded a bottle cap over the tip as my broadhead. They would last for a few shots as long as ya didn't hit anything real solid with them and were free. Some weeds had a big round knob on them where a worm of some sort had made a home. I shot those as blunts.

Like was simple and cheap back in the '50s when I was a boy growing up.

[squirrellluck]

And 20 years later I learned the same way GB. Only sometimes the bow was myrtle.