Anyone any thoughts on this?

[ccdjg]

Well John, I think that takes the prize for the oddest purveyor of airgun ammo - a Funeral Directors! What I am wondering now is, what motivated you to go in and ask? Or were the pellet boxes on display in the window, tastefully arranged among the urns and vases?

[keith66]

There was a local shop in Benfleet "Barnes" that was mainly a fishing tackle shop but did a roaring trade in relums, gats & zip pistols, beatall & marksman pellets & all manner or replica swords, sheath knives & cutting implements.
Of course when i got my Fwb sport at age 16 my mates were all green with envy as it was a bit better than their relums!

[Josie & John]

Well John, I think that takes the prize for the oddest purveyor of airgun ammo - a Funeral Directors! What I am wondering now is, what motivated you to go in and ask? Or were the pellet boxes on display in the window, tastefully arranged among the urns and vases?

Oddest indeed. I've racked my brains as to what possessed me to ask and the best I can recollect is a family member gave me a heads up to look in there. This would have been in around 1987, when I lived in that neck of the woods. I've asked Josie to ask her relatives if they remember the funeral director in question and whether he is still there. I doubt if he has taken the trouble to obtain an RFD to continue selling airgun pellets today though!

John

[Lakey]

Although it is always tempting to think about the past through rose tinted spectacles, BSA were in a competition of a sort with Lincoln Jeffries, since both were selling essentially the same rifle. If I was BSA, I would be tempted to use the Bicycle angle as a bit of leverage in order to sell more into the established dealer network. Something along the lines of this - " In order for you to keep on the same level of dealer discount as before, we need you to take xxx cases of our pellets and targets etc etc. If that is not possible we may need to award the local BSA dealership to ....... " If you were faced with that sort of choice - you might make the decision to stock a few pellets and targets.

[shauny]

Not all things in retail make particular sense:

"Anything for the weekend Sir?"

Dave

ha ha !

[roll27]

heres one, when I was a kid, my local barbers shop not only sold fishing tackle bits and bobs but also air gun pellets, I think they also sold the gat airpistol. This was the old school barbers, black and white pics of styles available adorned the walls, 3 chairs but only one ever used as it was only a one man concern, he'd even warn the lino tiles away around the one chair. Fond memory's of having a brand new tin of cheap pellets.

[ccdjg]

I wonder how many men, having left the barbers after asking for something for the weekend, found themselves outside the shop scratching their heads at a packet of 500 Marksman pellets and wondering what they would tell the wife?

[bcham]

i remember, buying my first webley premier 22,air pistol from a second hand shop down the road, in the 70s, i was only15 but managed to scrape the £5 together.most second hand shops sold air guns in them days. shame they dont anymore.

[Josie & John]

i wonder how many men, having left the barbers after asking for something for the weekend, found themselves outside the shop scratching their heads at a packet of 500 marksman pellets and wondering what they would tell the wife?

lol!!!

[Lakey]

I was well known in the gun/fishing shop from an early age, due to the fact that I was a long time coarse fisherman, so they wouldn't sell me pellets underage (before I was 14 I think). The bike shop used to be a different matter.I used to send my much older looking twin brother in there to buy boxes of Marksman .22 pellets. I remember looking down at each new box of 200 pellets thinking of all the possible adventures I would have as a result of my purchase. Those .22 pellets were the young persons equivalent of big game cartridges. It was years later before I came to the conclusion that Marksman were not the absolute best quality and most accurate pellets, but at the young age I was I didn't care They were always on the shelf next to the 3 in 1 oil and the puncture repair outfits.

Lakey

[Lakey]

Here are the details of my gun, sold from the hardware shop of William Chalkley in Winchester. William was a taxidermist, as well as running a hardware shop, which continued in business until the late 1950's. It more than likely that Chalkleys were also bike suppliers as well, as doing all the usual hardware type stuff.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/67044...rial+no.+47194

[windmill]

I used to buy mine in the sixties from an independant Army Surplus shop in Middlesbrough. They sold mostly ex WW2 stuff- uniforms, clothing, boots, proper genuine Commando knives - even Brass Knuckledusters etc! Should have bought the lot.....

[jameswrx]

This thread has jogged my memory, well almost.. Can't quite recall the exacting information but I ended up with a load of Marksmen pellets via a cycle shop. Think they were really cheap, old stock and I bought loads of boxes. Pretty sure I've still got a few boxes in the loft. Red and yellow card boxes, colour differences denoting pellet size IIRC.

[Hsing-ee]

Ahh, days gone by, slinging an un-cased .303 Enfield No. 4 across your back and pedaling off down to the rifle range after school?

No, I don't remember that. Our school didn't have a rifle range.

A bloke I worked with at the Medical Research Council in the early 1980s used to take his SMLE No.4 in a case on his Honda 250 to the ranges at Otmoor. I think he might have taken out a noisy, crapping seagull that built a nest on his chimney with it as well. A rural type of fellow.

Still, those were the days that the USAF were storing 200-odd Tomahawk cruise missiles at Greenham, each with a 250-kiloton nuclear warhead. The locals were informed that the massive stockpile of death was an 'Insurance Policy' in a nice friendly leaflet. We had a sense of proportion in those days.

[averageplinker]

As a child of the seventies and eighties I have fond memories of independent sports stores that would have tennis racquets on one wall and air rifles and crossbows on the other.

PS I thought an accumulator was a polite description for those of us with more rifles than we let on :-)