Identifying or Dating Hill Bows

It is by no means unusual for Hill bows to appear on the traditional archery lists for sale pages or on auction sites. Those who buy Hills used often want to identify the model, the basic information about the bow, and perhaps when and by whom it was made. Fortunately, there is a code on each bow that will help with this. The following material is from a small series of posts that appeared on the Hill Shooters email list, supplemented by a post from Craig Ekin of Howard Hill Archery. With this material, you should be able to get a pretty good idea of the model of the bow and who probably made it. The who also helps with the dating of it.

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Here is their reponse: 'The serial number should be located on the riser towards the bottom cup. Hold the bow, as if shooting, so the backside is facing you and follow the backside down to where it meets the limb cup. There is a small space that the number should be engraved in.' Use this form to search PSE bow serial numbers. Enter your serial number in the space provided and click the Search button. Thank you for purchasing PSE!

From time to time, as we get more information through the HH email list, we will supplement this page.

I have two Wesley Specials. The serial numbers are: WC 664970 and WC 665066. Do the serial numbers have any meaning other than production sequence?
Gil Moss, Portland, Oregon

Gil...

I am working on a page for identification of Hill bows. Not ready yet. However, I can tell you that your serials:
WC 664970 and WC 665066
can be read as follows: 'W' means it's a Wesley. The 'C' means that Craig built it. '66' means it is 66' long. The remaining numbers are serial and, I believe, once I get organized, can be used to tell when it was built.
More on this whole subject in a week or two.

Bear Compound Bow Serial Number Search

Richard....
The serial # on my Big 5 is BC 685319
--
'Mike your friend in traditional archery'

Mike.... 'B' = Big Five 'C' = Craig '68' = 68 inches etc.By now I'm sure you're all getting the idea... it's really quite straightforward. What I'm after and contacting Craig about is other variations of the 'who made it' initial, like 'T' for Tim Meigs, etc. and perhaps some reference points for the serial number part to that a bow could be put into a time reference.
I've done similar projects in the identification of antique sewing machines, and all it takes is a sufficient verified data base. However, it's always easiest to go to the source if you can.

The following was provided by Craig Ekin:

Hi Dick:
There are some general ones (rules) that will help out 'most' people. There have been quite a few bowyers over the decades, but the most common are:

5 numbers without any letters or with just an R in front were made by John Schulz. The R stands for reverse handle.

There are a 'few' that have a Y for yew.

4 numbers followed by 3 numbers without any letters were made by Tim Meigs.....ie: 7077 134

2 letters or 3 letters where the last letter is K were made by Ted Kramer and/or his son, Lee. For example: BK is Big Five by Ted and Lee Kramer. BLK is Big Five
by Lee Kramer. BTK is Big Five by Ted Kramer. They worked together lots of the time in the same shop. Early on they did everything together. Later on, they worked
in the same shop but individually.

These letters are then followed by 4 or 5 numbers which are the length of the bow with the serial number of the bow.

And a bow with C in the beginning two or three letters was made here and stands for Craig.

Occasionally, someone would request something unique and that won't fit into this scheme, but this will take care of most of the bows from late 60's on.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you don't understand something or you have a question.

Bear Compound Bow Serial Number Lookup 2472810

Craig

Hill ID Codes

Here is a photo of two of my Hills.

The first is a brand new Black Bear Carbon. The code can be read as:

'BBC' = Black Bear made by Craig

'64' = bow length is 64'

'5444' = serial number (note that the last 4 has shed a bit of its paint)

'52 @ 25' = the tillered draw and weight (note that making an ampersand by hand with a brush is tough! The '@' usually looks like a small 'e')

Second bow is a Halfbreed and the code would read:

'HC' = Halfbreed made by Craig

'66' would be the bow length

'1961' would be the serial number (kinda low!)

Note: I just laid out all my own Hills for a 'group photo' (Hey, you do it with your family!) and noted the following that is relevant to this topic.

First, I do have a very fancy Cheetah with a fully checkered ebony riser. This bow has no identifying marks on the riser, undoubtedly because the checkering would have destroyed it anyway. I thought it was unmarked, until I noticed as I was posing the photo that Craig had actually signed it in full 'Craig T. Ekin'. This is quite small, on the belly of the top limb just above the riser, and cleverly located in the middle of a knot in the Mountain Juniper... pretty hard to see. This is the only actually signed bow of his I have.

Second, I have two Bear Cubs. This is the 'kids' bow that Hill Archery offers. To tell you the truth, I'm a bit beyond the kid stage, by about 60 years or so, but I love these bows. I have one that is marked 40# @ 23' that pulls 45# for me. It's an older bow but, other than the poundage, draw and length ( 56' ), is not identified with a model or maker initial or serial number. My other Bear Cub is a new one made for me by Craig, also the 56' one. It pulls 27# @ 25' and is the bow I shoot when my arm and/or shoulder are acting up. This one is also only marked with the draw weight and length and the bow length. Bear Cub bows are marked 'Bear Cub' on one limb, however, so you do know what model it is.

Dick

Some additional helpful info:

Tim Meigs worked at Hill from 1977 to 1992.

John Schulz worked at Hill from 1968 to 1974.

Hill Limited Edition Bows

Here is a list of Limited Edition Hill bows that Howard Hill Archery has made:

Commemorative... 75 made... one for each year of Howard Hill's life

Rogue... 50 made

Jungle Cat... 40 made

King of the North... 50 made

Ol' Three Toes... 50 made

Centennial... 90 made

Wild Boar.. 50 made

Scirroco... 50 to be made