Ladies and Gentlemen,

IN 1953, one can buy a general hunting license, valid for one year, for $84.

This includes the following animals:

Buffalo 2
Bushbuck 2
Dik-dik 2
Blue duiker 2
Eland 1
Grant gazelle 2
Thompson gazelle 4
Coke hartebeest 2
Lichtenstien hartebeest 2
Impala 3
Roan 1
Wildebeest 3
Zebra 3

If you wish to add more animals to the above license, you are allowed the following:

2 more buffalo at $3.5 each
3 bushbuck at $0.50
1 cheetah $71
2 dik-dik $0.15
1 Abott duiker $3.50
2 blue duiker $0.75
1 eland $3.00
2 elephant $86.00
2 Grants $0.45
4 Thompson $0.28
2 genernuk $7.00
2 Coke hartebeest $0.71
2 Lichtenstein hartebeest $1.45
2 hippos $3.00
3 impala #0.42
1 greater kudu $$7.00
1 lesser kudu $7.00
1 leopard $71.00
1 lion $28.50
2 black rhino $28.50
2 roan $2.00
1 sable $7.00
4 wildebeest $1.42
3 zebra $0.71

Daily rate for 1x1 was $88.00
Observer cost $11 per day.

I KNEW right from the beginning that I was born 50 years too late!!

To all the TZ outfitters out there...How about we go on a safari at these rates to bring back the feel of old east Africa. I'll bring the booze. What do you say?

Interesting how the leopard is so much more expensive than a lion...

BTW elephants were on a special permit I presume...probably a little more than those $.50 bushbucks!

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?

TIME: With luck, you might get trophies of the Big Four of African game, together with plenty of lesser game, in as little as two weeks' hunting. But if your're making a trip to Africa, you'd be foolish to depend on luck. The best outfitters recommend that you allow three weeks for the safari itself, from the time you leave Nairobi until you get back. If possible, of course, allow more - but if you allow three weeks, you'll be about as sure as anyone can be, hunting wild game, that you'll get the trophies you're after.

Three weeks, then, for one safari. Allow two days in Nairobi, for preparations beforehand, two days in Nairobi afterward before emplaning. Add travel time, one and a half to two days by air each way between Nairobi and New York. Total: four weeks home to home, plus a day or two. Figure on the two days and call it one month.

MONEY: For the safari itself, one white hunter for one client, about $2,000. Two clients and one white hunter, $1,200 per client.

Say you go with one good hunting friend, your safari cost is $1,200. That covers everything on safari, including fourteen native helpers - everything except liquor and your ammuntion. You'll bring your own ammuniton. Add liquor. Add a few days' hotel expenses in Nairobi at about $6 a day, including meals. Add extras for tips and for clothes you'll buy in Nairobi. Call it $1,400. You do not tip your white hunter.

Add game licenses. These differ somewhat according to the territory and game. Tanganyika is representative. General license, plus special licenses to include all the Big Four, $450. Much of that is elephant. Include buffalo, rhino, lion, but not elephant, and the cost is about $250. All right, you want elephant, $450.

Add cost of taxidermy afterward. This will depend, obviously, on how much of what you get you want to keep. At a fairly generous guess - elephant tusks, rhino horn, buffalo head, lionskin rug, some antelope - say $500.

Add plane fare. Round trip New York-Nairobi costs $1,593 first class, $1,106.70 tourist. There is no tax to be added. First-class and tourist use same type of planes. On tourist flights you don't get free drinks.

Add it all, assuming you fly tourist. In round figures, $3,450. You can fly now, pay plane fare later in installments if you want to - twenty-five percent down, twenty months to pay the rest. You can postpone taxidermy, you can shoot your elephant with a camera instead of a gun-you need no license for that and no taxidermy either. But figure it without cutting corners at all - for the hunt of a lifetime, it's a bargain.

WHAT TO TAKE WITH YOU?

GUNS. you will want three rifles on safari - a light but hight-velocity one, caliber .22 to about .25; a medium, caliber .30 to .375; and, for elephant and rhino especially, a heavy, .450 to .475. You will want scope sights for the light and medium rifles - 2.5X is about right - but not for the heavy rifle; big game animals are shot at short range. You will also want a shotgun for birds. You can, if you wish, rent rifles and guns in Nairobi, but you will obviously enjoy shooting more if you bring your own. Do not bring handguns; you will have more trouble getting them through customs than they'll be worth. Do not bring more than the three rifles you'll need; you will be shooting with native gunbearers, and three sizes of rifle ammuntion to keep seperate and ready for you in the field are enough.

AMMUNITON: For a three-week safari you will want for the heavy rifle about fifty rounds of ammuniton, thirty solid and twenty soft; for the medium, 120 rounds, thirty solid and ninety soft; for the light rifle, 150 rounds, soft. For the shotgun you'll want 300 rounds Nos. 4 and 6. If you can give your outfitter enough notice, he'll lay in your ammuntion for you and save you the trouble of carrying it or shipping it ahead.

CLOTHES. Most of your hunting clothes you can buy in Nairobi. Get measured as soon as you arrive, and your clothes will be ready for you the next day. They are not expensive. You can get boots in Nairobi too, but you may prefer to bring your own. You'll be doing a lot of walking, and you want to be sure of having footwear you can depend on. Bring along a sweater or two. If you have woolen pajamas and a woolen bathrobe, bring them too; the hunting country is warm by day, but cool after sundown. Do not bring any large supply of underwear, handkerchiefs, socks and things like that; on safari, laundry is done every day. If you happen to have a sun helmet, leave it at home. In East Africa, sun helmets are jokes.

[Taken from an August 1956 article in Field & Stream, as reprinted in the book Robert Ruarks' AFRICA.]

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed.

I KNEW right from the beginning that I was born 50 years too late!!

Me too.

Uuuugh! Now I'll be in a bad mood all weekend.

Rich Elliott

You know what? I bet there were plenty of people who complained about the prices back then too.

I can hear it now, "$88 a day. What, do you think I am made of money?"

And gasoline was 20 cents/gallon. Now, it is 11 times as high. So, $88 x 11 = $968. Looks about the same difference to me. Nothing changes.

Hog Killer

One thing we're overlooking, I think, is travel time (time=money) and disposable income (uhhh, I guess that's 2 things). The average income in 1953 was $4011/yr. So, $3500 represents roughly 88% of the annual avg income - quite a bite! The 2003 US median household income was about $41000. Avg 7 day safari today, $20K? Less than 50%. Still think you were born 50 yrs too soon? OBTW the cost of a flight to JIA today is $1200 in today's $ VS $1106 in 1953 $ flying by prop-plane.
Dave

After further investigation (http://www.newsengin.com/neFreeTools.nsf/083c35bcd0562e...04f5e61?SaveDocument) one 1953 dollar equals about $6.98 2004. That would put the cost of a 1953 safari at just over $24 grand. Not too bad, but that still doesn't offset the travel time/comfort issues.
Dave

quote:

Originally posted by almostacowboy:
After further investigation (http://www.newsengin.com/neFreeTools.nsf/083c35bcd0562e...04f5e61?SaveDocument) one 1953 dollar equals about $6.98 2004. That would put the cost of a 1953 safari at just over $24 grand. Not too bad, but that still doesn't offset the travel time/comfort issues.
Dave

Now I may just be a dumb hillbilly but comfort issues??
Could you please explain this to me??

Those were the days.

It is only one solution to this problem my friends.



Tell me your location and I pick you up, if you have US dollars dated 1953 that will put you in front of the line.

Taking that $3500 figure for the total cost of a safari in 1955 and converting to todays value with the CPI, that's a $26000 safari. Not dirt cheap, but still about 1/4 the cost of what a comparable safari would run you today.

Saeed, I agree with you about being born 50 years too late. We can never hunt Tigers, Indian Elephant, Wild Black Rhino and so many others at any price. And of course those prices back in the fifties even if adjusted for inflation would be a fraction of what one pays now,as Pennglock has calculated.

Regards
Aziz

quote:

1 lion $28.50

That is an outrage!