Cast ring vs wire ring.

Could they both be original?

Newhouse 4 prong wolf drag

I have seen the Newhouse 4 prong drag with both the wire and cast solid ring. The wire ring is by far the most common. I have not seen the solid ring in any Oneida Community books, catalogs or advertising. There are plenty of fake or reproduction 4 prong drag.

I tried to add a picture but not sure if it happened. I think the picture on the natco Facebook group heading and Bob Vance’s price guide are examples of cast rings?? Those examples are an illustration from somewhere. The same illustrations in an old book I can’t seem to find called game traps I believe.
The bigger question to me about the drag is how they made the split, with what machine, sheer, bandsaw, hot or cold. Did they have to grind/file each prong to get the tapper to the end.
It interests me to see how much time was put into one piece.

It was told to me by a very well respected trap collector that in the 1970s a member of natca was making the four prong drags he was in New York State. It was well known at the time amongst collectors apparently he made a lot of them. They had one feature about them that made them easy to pick out. They all had cast rings in them.
I have pictures of real drags found in the wild with proper patinas. To date every one of those either had a word ring or the wire ring had been cut out and replaced with something else. There seams to be some variation in the real drags. The measurements are not exact from one to the other.
Experienced collectors have told me that the fake drags are made from a slightly different stock than the originals.
Another common thing I’ve noticed with the fakes is they quite often look too new. They just don’t show the age or the rusting the originals do. They also are quite often sold all by themselves not being hooked up to a trap. If you find one not on a trap with a cast ring that’s a big red flag.
As for the way they where manufactured I believe all of them real and fake where stamped or sheared out of flat steel. The flat steel itself is very similar to the flat stock used to make the base of the wolf traps.
Another serious collector had told me the fakes have shear marks on the back of the tines. I believe this to be false/ bad information. When they where originally made they all probably had those marks on them. Some would had looked cleaner if they where stamped out in a die when the dies where bran new. As the dies wear they get sloppy and the result is a poorer cut over time.
I think Oneida community cut the material to length. Then inserted the two ends one at a time in a die and stamped it to the desired shape leaving two prongs or forks on each end. At that time I then think they formed the tines. The tines where formed in a roller machine they would both be rolled at once at first and then bent or rolled one at a time to the desired shape. Now the pre made drag would look like a flat piece of steel with two squid shaped arms coming off of each side. They would have the middle premarked with chalk and feed it into yet another machine that bent the middle exactly in half leaving the crimped eye to accept the wire ring. During the making and forming of the drag there was most likely heat used to help form the tines and make the big bend in the middle. The wire rings where yet made by another machine and I believe that they fed the stock round wire through the drag eyes before they where formed on the wrap around end.
As you can see making the four prong drags was no easy task and was soon abandoned by Oneida community in favour of using square rebar simply cutting it to length heating it and twisting it around a steel post set in a vice or even a jig.

I do have measurements and pictures of real drags

Do you know where the picture at the top
Of the natco face book sight came from?

Here are pages from Oneida Community 1902 and 1908 catalogs, they both show what would appear to be a solid ring on the #4 1/2 Wolf trap drag. However, these are illustrations, drawings, not photographs. It may have just been easier to draw the ring without the twists in the ring. In fact, none of the illustrations of the 4 prong drag show a wire ring with the twist, even though the wire ring was the standard. The Oneida Community book, "How to Catch Wolves" and the 1905 "The Newhouse Trappers Guide" both show the same illustrations.

1902 Oneida Community catalog


1908 Oneida Community catalog


The 4 prong drag was made from 1895 until about 1909, almost 15 years. They were made for production, they were not that difficult to make in a factory with the proper equipment. The 4 prong drag was not hand forged, they have no hammer mark on them, they were formed with machinery. They were made from flat bar stock and the points were sheard, leaving a bur on the inside side of the prong where it was cut. The wire ring was the standard, solid cast rings may have been used at some point. The 2 prong drag was easier to make and I am sure easier to ship. The #4 1/2 was made to catch Wolves, when there were not many Wolves to trap, the #4 1/2 was used to trap Beaver. For Beaver trapping, the Y chain with a drag was in the way and most were cut off by trappers. That is why it is now difficult to find a complete trap.