fishnut

soooooooo BYOB then?

So your saying your hosting a NJGF meet up at your place the end of march? When the cats away the mice play. Is this BYOB or do you have a bar?

^yup that's the guy I've heard about

Thanks zeke.

Thanks zeke. that's not who I was thinking of. I've had the stock doctor out of Warren nj recommended several times.

That's the stock DR right?

the Crack

Ambercrombie & Fitch model 21 ad Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

Ambercrombie & Fitch record

factory sheet

I have been meaning to post this for a while, First a huge thanks to Jessica Bennett of the Buffalo Bill Center Of The West/ Cody Firearms Museum and Robert Beach of Griffin & Howe. Backstory- When I was 12 and got my hunting licenses my grandmother wanted to give me one of my grandfathers guns to hunt with. She opened her gun safe and told me to pick a gun I'd like (cool grandma, I know) I picked a 20g side by side (legally transferred to my dad) and took it to a gunsmith to be checked out. the front bead was chipped so I asked if he could put a new one on. He looked me and asked me if I knew anything about the gun. I knew nothing about guns and told him so, he laughed and told me that it was a valuable shotgun and he would not put a new sight on it because that was the original sight. He said it was in good working order other than the sight and that I should be careful with it if I take it hunting. I decided not to hunt with it but shot allot of clays with it over the years but It developed a small crack in the hand guard so it was retired to the safe. when I got my FID card I took legal possession of the shotgun. According to my grandmother the shotgun was my great grandfathers who was an avid small game hunter. The search- A few years ago I inherited the rest of grandmas guns and began to learn as much of the history about each of them as I could. I pulled the Model 21 from the back of the safe one day. I had heard of the Cody museum so for my birthday my wife paid to get the info from the original build sheet if they had the info for my serial number which was a low one, #6263. To my surprise they did in fact have the build sheet, they printed all the info out on a really nice paper and sent it to me. This was great but it lead to more questions than it answered. My Great Grandfather, Art Hall of Bedminster NJ was not a wealthy man, just a painter and a baseball player, but it turns out that this Model 21 was made in 1933 and was a trap grade skeet gun and included all the factory measurements and specs for the gun. I wondered what great grandpa was doing with a shotgun like that back then, everything else was either hunting or military type guns. Another surprise to me was that the gun was made for by a company I've heard of but didn't know the history of, Abercrombie and Fitch of Madison ave NYC. Turns out they were like a high end LL Bean back in the day. So while researching Abercrombie and Fitch I learned that Griffin & Howe was involved with importing guns for the A&F store. I contacted Robert Beach of the archives and research dept at Griffin & Howe, I figured it was a longshot but it couldn't hurt to ask if he could find any info about the gun for me. Well I hit the mother load of information, everything I was looking for and then some! I was sent a packet with all the info on the entire history of the gun. included was a 2 page story of the history of the gun printed on very nice Griffin & Howe letterhead, Any info from all 3 previous owners, photos of pages A&F inventory books pertaining to both sales of the gun, and a reproduction of the A&F catalog ad selling model 21's for 145 bucks in 1933. The life of Winchester Model 21 #6263 1-Left Winchester Repeating arms on September 20, 1933. Received by Abercrombie & Fitch on Sept 20 1933 at a cost of $100.93 2-First sold to Frederick Wilson Ingalls a stock broker and resident of Pelham Manor Village in Westchester county NY on Sept 22 1933 for $145.30. 3-On 1/23/1937 the shotgun was brought into A&F by Chas J Wicks of Thornwood, Mt Pleasant Twp Westchester county NY to be sold on consignment. Chas was an employee of A&F in the gun dept during this time. It looks like the gun was sold privately from Mr. Ingalls to Mr. Wicks especially because they were residents of the same county. One could guess as to why a stock broker is selling off guns between 1933 and 1937. 4-On 1/24/1937 the shotgun was bought by Dr. Augustus Smith Knight who was a Medical doctor and served as the medical director of the Metropolitan Life Insurance company for $100.00 with a payout to the consigner (Mr. Wicks) of $80.00. Dr. Knight was a resident of Manhattan NY and also had a farm in Bedminster NJ. This is where the A&F info stops but from knowing my family history I can take it from here 5-Art Hall (my great grandfather) was a painter in Bedminster NJ and he did all the painting at the Knight farm in Bedminster. Dr. Knight and Mr. Hall were also hunting buddy's. After Dr. Knight died on March 21, 1948, Art Hall still continued to help out Dr. Knights widow, Anita Knight with anything she needed around the farm. When I say anything I do mean anything, its family rumor that Anita Knight was Art Halls mistress. So it is my guess that Dr. Knight either gave Art Hall the gun as a payment or a gift or Anita Knight gave it to him as a gift or a "payment" LOL. When Art hall died his daughter Jane Luhmann (aka my grandmother) inherited the gun along with the rest of his collection. My grandfather Richard Luhmann was a hunter and gun guy so it was used by him until he died and then a few years later I was 12 and you know the rest. So about the small crack in the hand guard. ill try and post pics later. its small but its there and its all the way through. what do you guys think should I have it repaired to stabilize it. I would really like to shoot it again but I don't have to its been a few years already and id rather not do something to the gun to devalue it just so I can shoot it. Hopefully my daughter my future grandkids can sell if for a good amount if they don't like to shoot. LOL.

You can finish it just not in NJ I belive.

Make it on a Friday or the weekend and I'm in. I'd also be very interested in a CCW pistol class.

we do that at Clinton wma all time, almost every month for a few years now.

I've already stashed a bottle of blackberry brandy in the garage near the snowblower

x2

Wahoo!!!!

We really need to do a NJGF party boat meet up this summer or something.

yeah I know that area well. I once spent 2 weeks on pidgin key, it's the small island under the old bridge right where the first gap in the old bridge is. 2 weeks of nothing but diving and fishing. It's nothing to wade out 200+yards from the island and still be in waist deep water. Super fun with a fly rod!! Sombrero reef has some killer grouper fishing and lobster diving. The whole area is a fishing meca in my opinion

let me know when and where exactly I have a few friends that run boats in Florida. Mainly near west Palm Beach but depending on the fishing sometimes a few of them are fishing out of the keys. Marathon area usually. My mom is down in Florida looking to buy a home right now, Sarasota area (not my first choice) and if she does the wife and I already are planning a road trip from there to the keys for some fishing for our daughters first keys trip next year. She is only 11 months right now lol. We're pretty into fishing so she's just going to grow up fishing.

Sorry I can't figure out how to make it vertical

Im about 12 or 13 in this pic lol. The belt helps out allot, don't have to worry about getting hurt by the rod butt and it let's you really lean back and then reel down on the fish.

Whenever you go if your near flemington your welcome to stop by and pick up my fighting belts to borrow. It's a belt that has a small cup on it that accepts the butt of the rod. It's allot more comfortable for kids to use because the Rods can be a bit big for them. I have a few of them.

Seeing a nice striper come over the rail will definitely hook them (pun intended lol) but as you know with fishing there is no guarantee you will catch a fish. Chumming up a school.of blues is as close as a guarantee as you can get in fishing. Take em out for blues this summer and then striper this fall. Your kids are ild enough for tarpon as snook fishing down in Florida but if you were willing to go that far I'd recommend going down to Florida as close to Christmas as you can and going out trolling. You can catch sailfish, marlin, small tuna, dolphin, wahoo and kingfish all in the same day. I caught my first sailfish when I was 11 so your kids are old enough to fight those types of fish. Maybe not a big marlin you can take that one lol.