went to a large gun auction in the town of Berryville Va. Probably let a Parker Hammer gun go that I should have bought, but severe pitting makes me crazy. Anyway, decided to wait until the end and bid on some older shotgun shells. Fellow who passed away (personal collection of 200 guns) also had probably 200 boxes of different shotguns Shells. Picked out a flat consisting of 14 boxes of assorted 12 gauge shells, all of which were paper (except one) and mint. Anyway, in addition to three boxes of Remington Kleanbore Nitro Express shells, a box of Winchester Super Speed Mags, 2 boxes of Eley and a couple of others then came the two wildcard boxes. The wildcards were a box of Buffalo Brand shotgun shells out of Philadelphia (mallard on the front, Buffalo on the sides) and a box of Herters Shells that were all plastic and a deep royal blue that you can see thru. Anyway, never seen either one of these boxes before. I'm not normally a shell collector, but I decided these were unusual enough to mention.

PS. Don't know if its our new President and a fear of losing ammo, but I've never in all my years seen ammo sell for what it did today. Certainly some was collector ammo, but the shells went for more then some of the guns did. Also to give you an idea of what things sold for, a Fox SW 12 gauge with 28" barrels and 10% Case Color sold for $1,500. I thought it would go for maybe $800. Guess it only takes two bidders. PS. Two other parkers a pinned Trojan and a beat up GH Damascus both went for $800 each. The Hammer gun with the badly pitted barrels went for $500. Would have made one cool wall hangar. Anyway, Just thought the Herters shells and the Buffalo Brand were interesting.

I'm old enough to remeber Herters shot shells, but never heard of the Buffalo brand. Seems like a great find.

Sound very collectable. If you can give me more details on the Eleys, especially the box description; photos help, I should be able to give you some more information on them. Lagopus.....

There was a 'Buffalo' brand that loaded blackpowder shotshells. I have a box of them that a friend of Bill Wise gave me one year at a get together. I had been shooting BP on the sporting clays course all weekend and came up a few shells short so he gave me two boxes of factory 'Buffalo' BP shells.

ETA: I think it was this brand: http://www.buffalobore.com/
But their website doesn't show any shotshells.

The Herter's are a nice addition to any collection. I was lucky enough to pick up a full box of 8's and several lose 7 1/2's this summer at a yard sale.

They sure look like Wanda's. I bet Wanda changed the plastic dye from red to blue and called them Herter's

bill

Yep, that's exactly what they were. I have a few loose rounds still left around here. Fiocchi made primers for Herters, at least some types, I still have a good many of the old Rem 57 size. Some of the Herter's products were pretty decent, some were pure Rube Goldberg. Like the "wasp waist" bullets.

I sure miss those old Herter's catalogs with George Herter's homelies and hype on his products. I bought a number of reloading dies, semi-inletted stocks, decoys, etc. from those catalogs over the years. In 1966 I burned 3 large grass sacks of his decoys (mallards, black ducks) before shipping out to Vietnam, because i couldn't find anyone to take them off my hands and I had to get rid of them. I had exceeded my shipping allowance for goods to put in storage.

At the price of wooden decoys at collectors' sites these days, I guess I burned up a small fortune.

Jim,

A lot of fly fisherman used to wait for those catalogs. The full color plates in back with all flies was a great resource.

I had a custom VZ-24. Had Harry McGowen do the barrel and metal work. Fajen's supplied the stock. I had Herters fit it all together. The checkering was 11 panels at 22lpi. Don't think I paid $300 for the stock work.

At their height they were really something.

I have some Herter's goose and duck calls in a drawer.

Pete

That is indeed the same shells (Herter's) that I purchased. Mine are size 4's. I'll get a picture of all the different boxes I purchased posted this weekend.