Vintage Trapping gear

[hunter00]

Ive owned and used vintage Oneida Newhouse Leghold Traps over the yrs,A couple No.4's and 5's,These were produced in the 1800's and are quite collectable and still fully working today
I happened to check that site to find the no.5's{wolves/smaller Black bears} can and do sell for up to 600.00 + dollars today,with the large bear no6's sold for up to a grand.Any other collectors here on site or better yet any trappers

hunter

 

[hunter00]

Here's a couple examples currently on that site
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ANTIQUE-VIN...Y-5-BEAR-TRAP-W-CHAIN-VERY-GOOD-/252351289144
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-S-N...-BEAR-TRAP-BEST-CON-I-HAVE-SEEN-/222085783570
These hi quality vintage traps have gone up in value more so than some of our coveted Vintage Tube amps/gear.Originally produce in Sherrill New York by the Oneida Community a religious community of some 250 people, they were the highest quality traps an early trapping pioneer could obtain to pursue their trapping livelihood from approx. 1850 t0 1885..

hunter

 

[soundmotor]

I passed on a massive (bear?) trap at Brimfield last year for $500. I've been kicking myself since. It had initials but no brand and clearly hand forged. I'd guess it was 1850's, perhaps even earlier. In New England stuff like that still gets dragged out of cellars & barns.

 

[Omegaman]

I found some of those varmint traps on my country estate in Northern AZ. Small ones

Nice display items with all the arrowheads and pottery shards I found on the land

 

[hunter00]

I passed on a massive (bear?) trap at Brimfield last year for $500. I've been kicking myself since. It had initials but no brand and clearly hand forged. I'd guess it was 1850's, perhaps even earlier. In New England stuff like that still gets dragged out of cellars & barns.

Should have grabbed it Soundmotor!The bear traps are exceedingly cool pieces and to see them in action makes the point on their utility in the day.I recently took my nephews out and taught them how to build a set in the wild .All good info and these pieces can be passed down in the family.
A trappers licence is relatively cheap and skinning and processing fur is easy once you learn the basics.When I was a kid growing up I worked on a mink farm so learned skinning young and have never quit..loads of fun in the winter months!

hunter

 

[soundmotor]

Should have grabbed it Soundmotor!

Yeah, I know, rub it in.

Traps are somewhat hard to find in MA as leg-hold ones were outlawed about a decade back even to licensed trappers. Then, beavers did beaver things and flooded out areas not flooded since state settled. This in turn unleashed the contents of everyone's septic tank along the river and temporarily polluted it. Hilarity ensued in the statehouse resulting in the roll back of ill considered law. Cause, effect, consequences, and ass-covering. Now licensed trappers can use traps again but, average Joe with critter problem cannot.

 

[MaxxVolume]

When I was a young lad (back in the early `60s), I worked a couple of trap lines, caught plenty of muskrat, using mainly Victor # 0 and #1 traps. Had about 40 traps total, also had home-made skinning boards and stretchers. We were still burning coal for heat in those days, taking care of the furnace was one of my jobs. I would put the ashes from the furnace in a metal bucket full of water, and boil new traps in that mixture over a fire to get rid of that "new trap smell".

I loved going out after school, checking my traps in the last light of the afternoon....those were truly the simple pleasures of life for a young boy....

 

[usedto]

Not really vintage - and not worth $600.......................

 

[hunter00]

excellent post MaxxV.
I did the same trapping muskrat along the slews,then when I started on the mink farms every fall I did the killing{hypodermic needle with 20 ml of pure nicotin,yes the kind in cigarettes,injected into their necks}skinning ,then we used fleshing machines to flesh out the pelts.They then got tumbled and stretched out on boards and hung to dry on the walls to dry.After the mink season winter was spent with hobby trapping..mostly cyotes..the 60's on a rural farm were a great time to be alive!Those were the days when I got hooked on the old tube amp sound from mom and dads tube console radio's.
Where I live now ive got beavers ponds/cyotes and I even harvested a timber wolf while out deer hunting a few falls back so ive kept that aspect of my life alive..

hunter

 

[thomo57]

I live in Australia and as a kid l was trapping rabbits and foxes.
l went to a garage sale here in Sydney a couple of years ago and an elderly gentleman was selling some rabbit traps.
I started talking to him and he said follow me.
He took me into another shed and the place was adorned with literally hundreds of different traps.
Bear traps, mole traps, beaver traps, dingo traps and just about every other sort of trap you could think of.
Then there were his axes.
Nearly as many of them
One in particular he said was aluminium from Canada.
He said when the Lumber jacks came to town for an event they weren't allowed to carry the real ones in town so when they got lickered up they couldn't chop the town to pieces.
This gentleman was in his late 80's and said he'd been collecting for over 60 years

 

[hunter00]

Another story from my youth with learning trapping.One of my traps snaped shut on me after I had made my set,i was around 11/12 yrs old then.The n0.4 Oneida got my wrist and I had already wire wrapped it to a tree and built up a bit of a cubby for the cyotes to come into the bait at the right angle and had just set the trap into the ground and got careless,it snapped up on my wrist in the blink of an eye..lol They may not look too powerfull but I was a skinny kid then and didn't have the weight to depress the springs,used a c-clap in those day which were in my back pack I had left just out of reach.was getting dark quick by the time I free'd myself,then had a mile hike thru the bush back home...learned a lot that evening!My Dad laughed for an hr as he got me free of the trap..The no.4's will hold a 150 lbs timber wolf and the 5's a bear!

hunter

 

[soundmotor]

Not really vintage - and not worth $600.......................

Ah, the infamous gopher trap. I used to hate pulling those up when I was a kid. Did not check them daily, they got rank fast.

 

[hunter00]

I used to hate pulling those up when I was a kid. Did not check them daily, they got rank fast.

same with mole traps...stunk,later we used blasting caps..no need to dig them up afterwards...lol