Wildfowler geese

Rick L

Well-known member

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from this weekend's rambling
not high end - but i like the factory "field grades-- sort of like most my double guns

a pair of Wildfowler geese ( bearing the Point Pleasant NJ stamp) a low and higher head with pretty good paint (the setting sun broke through just in time to cast an orange glow on the backdrop
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I haven't found much about the various goose models with web searches- just curious how common they were- I know the brand name was bought by Tim Caplinger- but looks like he has not posted here in some time-

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Rick -

Those are very good Point Pleasant Wildfowlers and appear to be what was called the Superior Model (when Ted Mulliken had the Old Saybrook factory), not the Atlantic Coast Model.

Who ever gunned over them took very good care of them. Photo's are small, but looks like OP on most of the decoys.

I have admired and collected Wildfowlers for many years. In my mind they were the best Factory Decoys ever made and the first wooden decoys I gunned over in the 60's..

I have a OP Brant with the Point Pleasant stamp.

You may want to get the book about Wildfowler Decoys by Richard Cowan and Richard La Fountain.

Books, magazines and Decoy Auction catalogs are WAY better for info than the internet...
 
thanks guys

Vince - i have seen the book- and will get a copy

I have a few other wildfowlers - a pair of cans, a magnum sized black, all in great paint - and a scaup that is pretty rough but i like it for its character - i wrote a short fiction story about that one for the Parker Pages magazine - I agree - great factory decoys-

I also have an op Point Pleasant Brandt - little used if at all

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Rick


Really nice looking Wildfowler geese. I've always like Wildfowler decoys and agree with Vince that these are some of the best factory decoys made. They can still be obtained at reasonable prices and I have several black ducks and mallards and a drake goldeneye which sit in the shop. They made blacks and mallards with various head heights from resting to alert position. Back when I was college I made a dozen solid cedar black duck decoys with pine heads. Six or eight of these in a burlap bag were easy to carry and all you needed to walk into a off the road beaver pond for a evening hunt for blacks and woodies. I later sold those decoys but today, looking back, I wished I had kept some of those early birds. I still have the same patterns and they are some of my favorite carving subjects.
 
My favorite Wildfowlers, are the Old Saybrook hollow decoys.

Some have the inletted bottom board and the others have a thin bottom board. I have Black Ducks with each head position, and the high head was the toughest one for me to find years ago.

Also have a hollow drake Broadbill, and a drake Atlantic Coast Broadbill (in over paint).

During divorce had to sell mint BW Teal pair (Point Pleasant), GW Teal drake (Old Saybrook0, high head drake Pintail and a primo drake Wigeon also OS. All in OP. Man do I miss those decoys.

Have had many balsa Wildfowlers, traded many and kept some.

The Superior Oversize Model Canvasback (high density balsa), may just be the best factory Canvasback Decoy to hit the water.

All came into my care in the 80's and early 90's before the prices went up.

Many are still out there, and my dream is to find a small rig of puddle ducks to gun over. But at today's prices that may take some doing. Of course I've been out of the buying loop for awhile...
 
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