Firearms Advertising Envelopes

by Robert F.Denny

by http://www.classichunting/ collectibles.com

 A NOT SO surprising result of the increasing population and decreasing

hunting and shooting opportunities is the large number of one-time hunters

and riflemen slowly being metamorphized into collectors.

         The fields and forests that used to offer an evening woodchuck hunt, or

the gravel pit that witnessed many a black circle being punched out of an

NRA target, are distant memories they're now too far away or have

become housing developments.

        Our shooting has become sporadic, relegated to the one or two times a

year we visit the country. To preserve our memories of shooting we seek

other fields of interest  to occupy our free hours, but, given the opportunity,

our leisure-time interests still center around firearms.

        The collecting and study of shooting and firearms materials has mushroomed

in the past 15 years. Witness the number of gunbooks  available,

many of  them monographs on subjects thought to be of little previous interest.

         Any collector of firearms or cartridges can atest to the increasing

scarcity, and cost, of items that, a few years ago, could be bought at

junk prices.

        Demand has also resulted in reproductions of firearms catalogs, advertising

broadsides, leaflets and calendars. The neophyte collector  soon realizes

that there aren't many things related. Too often, if he does think

of something different or unusual, cost or space  quickly deter him. Who has

room for a collection of muzzle-loading cannon, or the price of three or

four Pope rifles?

        There is one field however, that has been largely overlooked. This is

the collecting of firearms advertising envelopes. Compact and still relatively

inexpensive, these envelopes (or covers as the philatelists call them),

are most attractive and informative to the firearms historian.

Last Season Hunting

                                         

gundigest:
picture: http://www.bukmanager.com/

                    
                      I got my first taste of this late season hunting a few years ago in Idaho
when I drew for one of the late hunts. I'd know  that the bucks started shedding
sometime in November, but I didn't think they'd be so far along by
the time the season opened on the 8th. Andy Hagel, one of the country's leading
taxidermists, and, incidentally, no relation to the writer, and I wanted to
make the hunt together. We couldn't get loose at t he same time for an earlier
seaon area, so the late hunt was it.
                Anyway, soon after we arrived, two things were immediately obvious: the
antelope were all out on the flats where there wascgn't even a wrinkle  in
the ground for miles on end, and most of the big bucks had already lost their
headgear. Many of the hunters were  not aware of this because the antelope
(which has true horns, not antlers), sheds only he outer shell, not
the central core. These are often mistaken for horns. I'm sure we saw at
least 500 antelope on that trip, but we'll never know how many were
bucks. Some of the smaller bucks still had horns, but they were safe as far
as we were concerned.
                The first evening we located a fairish buck with horns of about 14"-
14 1/2 " but it took us three days of following him around to finally get within
range when he made the mistake of going down a draw th avoid us.
We were there when he came out and I clobbered him as he ran flat-out
across the plain. His horns were hanging on only because the hide at the
the base was still stuck to them;you could turn them in almost any direction.
Andy wound up killing an even larger buck that had only the cores
with their new growth starting up, just so we could see what we had. To
top it off, neither of these bucks were fit to eat. They were snake-poor, the
meat was blue, and you could smell them a country mile away.
                       In the fall of 1968 I got in on the same kind of a deal in Montana, but
this time I was lucky. I drew for both antelope and deer in one of the areas
where both special non-residenet deer and antelope permits are issued. I
missed on the antelope permit, but got a deer permit, thereby saving myself
$35. My son, who lives in the Big Sky country, did have an antelope
permit for the same area, but could not get away until after the first of
 November. We hunted antelope from the brakes of the Missouri along Fort
Peck Reservoir to Highway#200, and from Jordan on the east to the Mussleshell
river on the west. There were antelope ther, although  I've been in
places where there were a hell of a lot more, but there were few bucks
that still had their horns. He never fired a shot because the only two we
saw that were big enough to be interesting, and that still had something
beside the cores sticking up, were on a posted ranch.
                    For a state that specializes in special non-resident antelope permits,
knowing full well that 95% of the antelope hunters will be looking for
heads, Montana is hitting the nonresident a low blow in allowing their
season to run after the bucks have lost their horns. Idaho does no better,
but does not specialize in non-resident antelope permits; Idaho gives the
homefloks the backhand punch.
                 Anyway, plan to hunt antelope as early as the season allows, and if you
want some of the finest stalking offered on the American continent, try
hunting them in the rough country.

Mountain Pronghorns

Gun Digest :
     In many places antelopes stay in the high, mountain country surrounding
their winter range all summer. really good bucks, too, and often  alone.
Some are found at unbelievable elevation if there is such suitable habitat
as high mesa country. high  sage slopes and basins and long, open ridges--
country that has plenty of room with-out too much timber. I've seen plenty
of antelope in this kind of country at elevations bordering 9,000 feet. In
some cases antelope are seldom if ever hunted, Only if the season is
still on after the first snows his the hight country, driving them down into
the lower foothills and flats, do they feel the hunting pressure their flat
land relatives are subjected to every year.
     However, most sntelope stalked in the foothills and rough brakes are
forced there by early-season hunting pressure. Hunting in this kind of
country is usually better on the second day, of thereafter, than it is on the
first day. If the weather stays warm and sunny many if these antelope
will stay back in the hills untuk a big storm pushes them down onto the valley
floor again. Sometimes you can go into this rough, hill country after
the first week or two of the season, after they have settled down, and get
some of the finest hunting of all.
     this , of course, depends on when the season opens. Where seasons open
any time in September there will still be antelope back in the hight country
unless an unusually early snowstorm pushes them down, but they don't
like snow in the rough country for some reason. When snow comes they
head for the flats for the winter. Late in the season you'll find few antelope
at hight elevations or even in the foothills. The fact is, antelope hunting is to
be avoided any time after the last week in Octiber.
     At least two antelope states have certain areas with either late seasons
or where closing dates are well up in to November Nearly all of Montana's
antelope seasons run untill  November 10, which, as we'll see later, is too
damn late to hunt antelope if you are looking for horns. Idaho has for several
years had two antelope areas that haven't opened until early November;
in 1969 it's November 8 to 23. All of these areas, in both states,
permit drawing for permits by nonresident hunter who have bought a
general big game license: Montana has several areas open to non-residents
via a special $35 non-resident antelope permit.
     What's wrong with this setup? Two things: At least 95% of the non-resident
antelope hunters anywhere are trophy hunters to some extent, and a
large part of the resident hunters also look for horns to shoot at. But what a
lot of antelope hunters don't know is that any time after November 1 many
of the nucks are starting to shed their horns: more importantly, in an average
 year in most areas, nearly all horns have been dropped by November 10!