Dating traps??

Morning all, Question I have is, there are books that list individual traps and give the value, is there a book that lists individual traps and gives the date or approximant date as to when they were made? I am not interested in value as much as age. thank you In advance for any help....Bill

"The Trap Collectors Guide" by Andreski/Parr is a price quide but it has dates on most of them as well.

would that be pat. dates or dates made?

Dates made in most all cases and in some cases they list the pat. dates that could be on the pan.

Thank you. I have been having a hard time dating my collection.

For most traps you will get a range of dates. 1920-1935, for example.

With some Herters traps, it is possible to pin down the exact year made by looking at the bottom of the trap. H77 = Herters 1977

Some times you can date a trap by a certain feature. Blake & Lamb # 1 Sure-Grip are an example. The single notch dog and under jaw trigger set up were just in the first couple of years of production. After that they switched to a Conibear type trigger.

As a general rule, patent dates don't mean much when it comes to when a trap was made. A patent date refers to a specific feature on a trap - such as a humped cross with clamp pan. If a trap has a certain feature and was made in say 1921, the pan can still have a 1907 patent date.

Gerstells book, The Steel Trap in North America, has a lot of information about when traps were made, when trap company A bought trap company B, etc.

Wiss, already have "the steel trap" book. was just wondering if they can put a value on a specific trap maybe there was a book that put the approx. date of manufacture with it. thanks though,

The book by Andreski & Parr gives you "values". Value is a subjective term. Not all folks agree.

Not sure what you are looking for as far as dates go. Diamond traps were made from 1923 to 1931. That is about as specific as you are going to get.

Are you talking about an actual specific trap, the one you are holding in your hand? I don't think that is going to be possible.

Wiss, that's exactly what I'm talking about, trying to put a age to the trap/traps I have in hand, example, newhouse Oneida com. 2 1/2 pat. dec. 16 02. when was it made? sounds to me like some one could put a new trap book out with values and approx. date made. Bill

How long was a pat good for?, before it had to be renewed?, when it was renewed was the pat. date on the trap changed? to many questions?

In my opinion, you are asking the impossible. Many traps were made over a period of years, without any design changes. A # 3 Victor double long with regular jaws made by ATCo in 1950 looks identical to a # 3 Victor double long with regular jaws made by ATCo in 1980. You can not tell the 2 apart. No way of knowing which trap is which. Same with many Newhouse traps.

If you want to talk about lesser brands, then you can narrow it down a bit. Prott traps were made in Wisconsin from 1947 to 1950. Some brands were only made for one year, but those brands are few and far between.

As I said before, the patent date has nothing what so ever to do with the age of the trap. It is the date a specific trap featured was patented. Such as type of pan attachment, type of jaw attachment, etc. Most Victor traps made during a certain time period have that patent date on the pan, whether it is a # 1 or a # 4. Some of the Oneida single under spring traps have 3 patent dates on the pan.

Wiss, I totally understand what you are saying about the pat. date and agree, and if I am understanding you right, the best we can say of my example of the 2 1/2 newhouse pat. dec 16 02 is it was made. cant say when but it was made sometime before 2017.

You can narrow it down more than that. Where was it made - Oneida Community or Kenwood. It will say on the lower portion of the pan.

Wiss,,,its a oc. but what I'm really after is where your getting the info to narrow it down, are you just using the history of when oc made traps, and saying they made traps from this time to that time , so the closest we can get is in that time frame, or is the pat. date the earliest it could have been made? thus narrowing a little more? by the way, I do appreciate your knowledge and patience.

sourdough: By chance the trap you were holding was made for a very short period, just 1904-1908. Information is from the Andrewski and Parr guide book. Information on most traps will not be as specific, as wissmiss has stated. snakecollector on this forum is perhaps THE expert on OC jump traps and would have substantial material(advertising, catalogs etc) from OC that would add additional info.

EDIT: The information above is correct for a 2 1/2 OC double under NOT a 2 1/2 Newhouse single longspring.

thanks cohunt, I still want the book, and wissmiss thank you too.

sourdough, I know exactly what you are looking for but I do not think the book you are looking for has been written yet. I have been studying and collecting Newhouse and Oneida Community traps for over 30 years. There are features on some traps that will narrow down the production date of a trap but in some cases the range is still broad. A trap with a patent date obviously was not made before that date and in some cases not made until several years after. A #2 1/2 Newhouse patent date trap would have been made approximately between 1902 and 1916. In 1902 O.C. was making Newhouse traps in two U.S. factories, Kenwood, N.Y. and Sherrill, N.Y. The Kenwood factory closed around 1904. No Newhouse traps smaller than a #4 1/2 had Kenwood, N.Y. on the pan, only stamped on the springs. I do not believe that they ever made any patent date Newhouse traps at Kenwood. The Sherrill made traps have "Oneida Community, N.Y." spring stamps. Your #2 1/2 Newhouse, patent date will have several things to look for to determine if it was made earlier or later in that period. Does it have strait or bullet teeth? Strait teeth are older and would be earlier. The spring stamp with just "N.Y." on the third line is older that "N.Y.-" The reason I put an end date of 1916 is that in about 1914 is when O.C. started using the split jaw posts, WWI, 1914 to 1918 ish. Most #2 1/2 Newhouse with split jaw posts do not have the date on the pan just "pat.". Also, O.C. started stamping "Made in U.S.A." on the third line of the spring stamp around 1914. Most traps with split jaw posts will have "made in USA" spring stamp. There are a lot of other features to look for but no book just yet. Also, back then a patent for a design was good for 14 years from the file date.

There is some good information, thanks for sharing everyone....
Mushrat

Good and informative post snake collector, thanks!

Snake, thank you. so in your opinion what would be the best book or source of info to get me the most information?

Snakecollector just gave you the best possible information you could get. He has studied traps for years and knows about the fine details of the traps, like when minor changes occurred.

The knowledge I have is more general and comes from 2 books. The Gerstell book and the Andreski/Parr book. By far the 2 best books out there. I would suggest getting both. They compliment each other. The pair will cost about $100.00, but it is a good investment, if you like old traps.

On the Andreski- Parr book. Get the second edition. Printed in 2016. It has additional info not in the original book.

One of the nice things about those 2 books is that they cover just about all the brands of older traps. The Gerstell book stops in 1983, when it was published. There is another series of trap collector books out there - one book for each of the major brands. In my opinion, they are quite spendy. If you bought the whole series of 20 some books, you would have spent over $400.00 and you still wouldn't have as much info as you get from Gerstell and Andreski/Parr.

I have Gerstells book and Andreski/Parr is in the works, thanks for all the help,,,sorry for dragging this out,Bill

Glad to help any time Bill, Those are the two best books.