Happy New Year to All. Here's a useful link I found over New Year:

http://dspace.nplg.gov.ge/bits...land_Holand_1958.pdf

Thank you for posting this.

Thank you, Sir, for providing a Forum Site on which it can be done.

Think shootaway already posted this but Happy New Year!
I have a 1910 H&H catalogue as PDF but don’t know how to post it!

Cheers, Chris

Great stuff.

Back in the early 70s I had a lot of interest in getting a bolt action of them in 375 H&H. From memory the cost then was about $5000 Aus.

I had a few phone calls with them. In the end I lost interest because I just knew I would want to end up bedding it and also being their M98 based bolt action and expensive it is still the shit end when compared to the doubles.

But a couple of things (I wish I still had them) was the catalogue and a letter they sent me. The catalogue was in very heavy brown paper wrapping and a backing board. But it was the letter that was unreal. It was a pale blue envelope and obviously high quality paper. However, when opened it there was no letter as such as the inside of the envelope had the typing.

Mike it sounds like the old Airmail letter/envelopes you used to buy back then. you wrote/typed your letter on the back and sealed it up forming an envelope, postage paid from memory.

Nowadays I think it is GBP30 for a copy of your rifles (or shotgun) record and they attach a letter with it. Haven't done it for a few years. They also correspond by email.

I do have a few of their brochures.

If anybody would like a pdf copy of their 1910 catalogue please PM me youremail address.

Interestingly in the 1910 catalogue they didn't include the .500 Cartridge for a double rifle.

RockDoc;

PM from me on the way now.

Kindest Regards

quote:

Originally posted by Rockdoc:

Mike it sounds like the old Airmail letter/envelopes you used to buy back then. you wrote/typed your letter on the back and sealed it up forming an envelope, postage paid from memory.

I can't remember sending an air mail letter.

However, at the same time what topped H&H was Roy Weatherby.

As I remember Michaelis Bayley were the Weatherby agents at the time, about 1973 or so. A mate and myself wanted an a 460 and Michaelis Bayley said it will take forever etc. I also spoke to Mick Smith.

To cut a long story short I made my first overseas phone call and spoke to Roy. He explained it had to be done with his agent (I am sure it was Michaelis Bayley at the time) and took the order over the phone which was two 460s, 120 cases for each and scope/mounts of his choice. We probably spoke for half an hour and Roy seemed keen to talk to someone from overseas.

Shortly after a letter arrived from Roy confirming the order. In the letter I am 99% sure it mentioned the "export licence" and that would take 6 weeks and then the two 460s would be sent to is agent.

The rifles arrived and I collected them via the late Sydney gunsmith Don Black. My mate decided he would have his stored just to keep. I bought it off him in about 1990 and a few years later Australian gun writer John Woods (now lives in America) bought it off me and still has the rifle.

The wood on both guns was unreal. Now comes the part where Roy Weatherby tops them all. A few months after the 460s arrived I met a bloke who was keen to get a 224 and 7mm Wby. So he also phoned Roy. The 7mm arrived and again unreal wood but the 224 did not arrive. So he phoned Roy. A 224 arrived and as an apology for the fuck up the the 224 was accompanied by one of those Mark XXII 22 rimfire

I ended up having 3 letters from Roy. A yellowish very high quality paper that was a reflection of the Wby catalogues from that general period.

The interesting thing with Weatherby is rifles always look better than the website. As far as I know it is still the most prized agency to have, now with Tasco Australia. Keith Herron tried to get it but Nioa won the day. It seems Ed Weatherby is the same as Roy in the sense if you have the agency then no one else etc.

I have had rifles from the Custom Shop that were not the standard website custom shop stuff. Yes, way over priced but the service is unreal. Nioa were more than happy for me to talk to the custom shop, in fact they were glad that I did it

Weatherby and H&H in the same post? mmm

Blasphemy!

I think it's an interesting contrast, showing the trans-Atlantic dichotomy. Both used Mauser actions until Weatherby lashed out and introduced his own, strong but maybe less reliable.

Though I certainly could not have afforded or even wanted to shoot a 460 Weatherby in 1973, the rifle was comparatively affordable and the cartridge may have trumped the 600 NE.

Weatherby has survived, perhaps by introducing lines even more affordable, but H&H abides as the Emperor ... can't say too much

PS: IIRC those letters written/typed on the envelope were called Aerograms. I lived in the UK during the mid-'70s and used to send them to my family. Phone calls home were prohibitive, costing a pound a minute - at a time when I made 37 pounds and my wife earned 30 pounds a week.