Old Catalog and Manual Reprints

[BarryinIN]

This is a plug for a place called Cornell Publications. I have no connection to them whatsoever other than being a customer.

They sell reprints of old gun manuals and catalogs. They have the most amazing amount of stuff. I think they get it by people sending them old catalogs to copy, which they then reprint, so don't know if they have an old catalog library. I know if I were stranded on a desert island with their stock room, I could occupy myself for a long time.

They have catalogs, manuals, ammunition catalogs, service manuals, etc from any gun company I can think of, and a lot I've never heard of before.

Want a Winchester catalog from 1887? Be more specific; they have the January, June, and November editions.

Want to see a Montgomery Ward gun catalog? Pick the year.

How about a Three Barreled Gun Company catalog, a Krag reloading manual from Ideal, or a 1926 DWM catalog?

They have catalogs from suppliers and retailers like Stoeger's, Abercrombie & Fitch, Griffin & Howe, etc. The first thing I got from them was a late 30s catalog from the National Target Company, which was partially owned by Townsend Whelen. It has guns (the Winchester 70 that had come out a couple of years before was $61.25) camping gear, Duxbak clothing, canoes, and the like, plus each section opens with an article by an expert in the field like Whelen, Julian Hatcher, or Charles Askins. I have got a lot of entertainment from looking through it.

They go back to the early 1800s. They have a lot of European catalogs and manuals, military manuals, trapping gear catalogs, and reloading manuals and catalogs too. I like old reloading tools, and while I'm not a collector of them, I could go crazy buying old reloading catalogs from these people.

They run from around $5 to maybe $20, depending on what you get. The 1898 Winchester catalog I got is pretty big and thick, and was around 15 bucks.

It's worth looking at the site just to see how much they have. They add new items all the time from people sending them in, and they have added a lot since I found them two years ago. Ross Seyfried, one of the few living gunwriters I actually like, writes a monthly column for them now.

http://www.cornellpubs.com/index.php