Picked this up and not sure what I have.

I can normally identify most bows but this has got me stumped. Looks like it could have been a kit bow with the square riser...finish is well done and glass is very nice.

Could it be a Smithwick's?

Tip overlays are zebra wood and nicely laid up and filed

67" nock to nock along the belly.

No decals or markings on it...have not measured draw weight as I'm waiting for a string order from stilldub.

Here's the shelf and riser...

Here's another angle of the shelf...

Off side of the riser..

Here's a picture of the tip...pretty substantial...

Last pic of the limb and the hook...great workmanship on the glue up of the riser and lams...

Thanks for any suggestions....I expect Mr. Stout will be along and solve this mystery!

Belly glass is an olive colour...bit of reflex off the riser. Two lams in the limbs.

Sure is an odd duck

My goodness is that a holy grail?

Maybe an Eddings

Need a better look at those tips.

Pdiddly- I'm thinking an early Gordon Plastics. Lance.

Grail? That crappy thing?

Joe

Lol

I'd trade it to the Mighty Legend of the North even up for the Turquoise Toothpick but I've grown attached to it. ;>) Besides, this bow told me it wants to actually be used and not displayed like the

Tips have a three layer overlay. Two layers of zebra wood with another layer of a lighter wood between. They were symmetrical so you see the centre layer equally revealed on both ends...nice work. Grooves are well cut and exact.

Here's another view from the side...quite substantial.

The limbs are very nicely tapered...that's a Canuck quarter for scale.

Might be a Root..

I'd bet $100 bucks it's a Wilson White bow from San Diego.

I was thinking more like a Corky Johnson bow from California. But then, those west coast bows are not in my expertise vault.

Smithwick (sp?) or Joe Fries?

The Smithwick Citation was made by Tom Jennings, the company was Smithwick-Jennings. Did Joe make his own bows? I always though he had bows made for him.

The two Joe Fries bows that I've seen each had his signature on them...Peter, do you think this is the original finish on the bow? Maybe someone has sanded away the vital information...

The riser has definitely been refinished and likely the limbs were too. The riser has a few "fish eye" bubbles so know that it was redone. The glass is in very good shape...

There is not a stamp or mark on the bow anywhere...looked carefully.

Roots were stamped...had different riser layup and tips. Also almost alI of them had tip wedges. I have various 50's style Roots so not that.

I have an older Eddings made Whiffen Shooting Star and this is quite different.

I am convinced it is California in origin from the riser layup, limb diameter and recurve design and tips.

I have a Dana (Joe Fries), a Drake, a Dick Green and a few Gordon Plastics and this does not look like any of those.

I think jaz5383 may be onto something with the Wilson White...I have a very old White Special that I picked up from crookedstix. While this bow does not resemble it a lot as this is newer the design would fit.

Still a mystery...

Corky Johnson is an interesting theory...

Although the early White bows (when he was with Eicholtz) had two lams in the limbs, I think his later work (on his own and with FASCO) was more likely to have extra laminations. The glass looks to be uni-directional...hmmm, this is a good mystery. I would agree, though, that those aggressively-angled short tip wedges are quite like White's bows.

The best clue is the tips. White's were very distinctive.

Here's a Corky.

That one above in a White

Here's a Corky

Here's a Corky

Unidirectional glass on this bow...does have a bit of deflex off the riser like the Corky.

My White has tips like those in the picture...one piece of wood.

Stottler Maybe ???????? Bob

Looks like a Eddings to me too.

I was a kid when Joe fries was around. He did a bow build in one of those old publications and it looked just like that. I'll put my money on a Smithwick.

Looks like a Gordan Glass that buddy of mine use to have. DANNY

Corky Johnson is/was my cousin! I always heard my aunt Ann brag about him and the great bows he made, but he lived in California and I live in Washington State, so we never met. I sure wish I had payed more attention, but I was young and stupid then. Now I'm older.......

It has the looks of a southern California bow.

I'm having a hard time determining if what I am looking at is left or right handed!

Right handed...green glass you can see is on the back...in the second picture at the top the belly side of the riser is facing me and is at the bottom.

I took a quick picture of the Cali bows (and an Eddings) in my collection to see what the risers look like in each of the models folks mentioned.

Left to right is a Dana (Joe Fries) with curly maple riser, a Gordon with a Gordon Plastics King peeking out, a Drake Firedrake, a very old Wilson Special, a Whiffen Shooting Star made by Eddings (not from Cali) a Na-Po with the small side plate and a Dick Green with a maple riser. The San Diego bows had lots of vertical lams in the riser and fairly straight yet narrow limbs with pronounced hooks and small tips.

The mystery bow looks similar but not exact, especially the tips. I suspect it's a Smithwick. Joe Fries and Dick Green apparently had a connection.

Here are Root's from my collection...it's my understanding that Ernie Root used tip wedges at the same time as Harry Drake through exchange of ideas.

These 50's Roots had a resemblance to SoCal Bows...there were never as many lams in the riser as the western bows though. Tips were very similar and there were, as I said, tip wedges in most.

Left to right is a 64" Gamemaster with overdraw, a 66" Fieldmaster, an unmarked 64" Gamemaster that I just picked up for a song (the bump below the grip is a Pearson Palomino peeking out) and a 64" Ranger.

I don't think the mystery bow is a Root.

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